Be Human Title: Be Human Author: leadernim Pairing: Taoris (and side!Baekyeol) Rating: PG-13 Length: 10,000+ words Summary: Side story to Absolute Chanyeol. Kris will never be never be human enough.
I analyze and I verify and I quantify enough One hundred percentile No errors; no miss I synchronize and I specialize and I classify so much Don't worry 'bout dreaming Because I don't sleep I wish I could at least 30 percent Maybe 50 for pleasure Then skin all the rest If only I was more human I would count every single second the rest of my life Ghost in the Shell - Be Human
The Boyfriend Store Store is an an artificial intelligence manufacturing manufacturing company based in Geneva, Switzerland. Understanding most of their costumers are in the Far East, for twenty years, the Boyfriend Store compiled an ambitious project to create the perfect Asian man.
Having already created ideal European, African, North American and South American prototypes, the Boyfriend Store spent the bulk of their funding from
the early 1990s for research on the criteria that would create the “perfect Asian man.” WF 112, sold exclusively from the Boyfriend Store’s largest branch in Shenzhen, China, is the culmination of millions dollars in cultural research, computer engineering and artistic design. His features, largely crafted through supercomputers and the leading facial sculptors of the time, are tailored to fit Asia’s thirst for artificial life.
He has been programmed to speak five of the major Asian languages, with more additions destined to come in the next ten years as his models record and export data back to their technicians. technicians. He’s the apple of the Boyfriend Store’s eye. He’s the project that’s too big to fail and just on the cusp of international international acclaim when he…fails.
When model WF112 first opens his eyes on a cold December morning, it is too bright. His eyes blink slowly, body thrumming as his processor pushes him past the threshold of inanimation and into a world that would kill him. He doesn’t know it yet. He turns his head and scans the room; his mind tells him there’s something he should be looking for. Who opened his box?
“Incredible,” he hears from his side.
WF 112 whips his head around. To his side, leaning over the box, is a young
man (unidentifiable in age) with small, black rimmed eyes and ink black hair. He looks to WF 112 with intrigue, hands tightening on the box.
“Hello,” WF 112 greets.
The young man gasps, gasps, leaning leaning closer. closer. “You “You look so real. real. Do you understand understand me?”
WF 112 tilts his head, “I do. I am the perfect model. There is nothing I do not understand.”
The young man nods, nods, “I don’t know know how much much I believe that…but that…but your Mandarin is really good. Do you know Korean too?”
“I know everything,” WF 112 replies, speaking in flawless Korean.
“Even better than mine,” the young man’s eyes are wide. It’s then that he looks down and notices the state of undress WF 112 is in. “You don’t come with clothes or anything? Why would they just send me a naked doll?”
The man trudges away, stomping out of the room room and into another unseen unseen on. WF 112 waits. From the open window, a breeze gushes into WF 112’s box and he stares, mental state whirling, as his skin reacts accordingly. It’s almost as if he’s…
Goose pimples, his brain supplies. A reaction to change in temperature, usually from hot to cold, or a reaction caused by this human emotion called “fear”.
Goose pimples also deal with this concept of “shivering”: when the core human body temperature drops, the internal organs contract to converse
heat. He doesn’t feel “cold” or what a human would associate with that sensation but it is uncomfortable. The prickling on his synthetic nerves is starting to hurt.
The young man returns returns with with “clothes” and and tells WF 112 112 to step out of of his box. box.
From the many hours of every day human simulations stored into his brain cavity, WF 112 has learned how to “wear” these things called “clothes.” Humans wear them at almost all times to protect themselves from the environment. Clothes are a very human thing. After he’s dressed, the young man, his presumed buyer, stares at him.
“Hm,” he says, rubbing his chin. “Do you…have a name or something?”
“A name?” WF 112 searches his brain cavity for the information. He comes up with one. “Wu Fan…My name is Wu Fan.”
“Wu Fan,” the man says. “I’m Huang Zi Tao.” He nods his head in a bow, “Wu Fan.”
“You can give me a name if you wish,” Wu Fan says, smoothing down his tshirt. “I am yours, after all.”
“Oh,” Tao says. “Oh, of course. Hmm, what to call you…” His eyes roam his room (his “living room”, Wu Fan recognizes from pictures), stopping when he nears a rack of DVDs. He picks the first one up and looks from it to Wu Fan, eyes narrowed. “Kristen Stewart….Kris. Kris? Kris.”
“Kris,” Wu Fan repeats. Understanding floods his brain cavity. “My name is Kris.”
Tao smiles, “How cool. Kris it is, then. It’s alright if you have two names, though. No one’s going to hang around you enough to use them both.”
Kris isn’t sure what he means; his comprehension is still at a painfully rudimentary level at such an early stage in his existence. Tao gives Kris a tour of his apartment, telling him he has free range over everything just “don’t make a mess.”
“A mess,” Kris repeats over and over, searching his database. A state of disarray. Chaos. “I will not make a mess.”
“How very cool,” Tao says again, eyes on Kris’ face. “I’d think you were human if it weren’t for your eyes.”
“My eyes?”
“They glow,” Tao explains. “Not by a lot. It’s a little weird but everything else about you is pretty lifelike. I think I’ll have a lot of fun playing with you.”
Within the first two weeks of living with his new owner, Kris learns Tao sees him one way and one way only. He’s a doll; a plaything; something to pick up and put down when it’s not longer interesting. He keeps Kris in his apartment the entire day, locking up all the doors and windows before he departs for school in the morning.
For the better part of his day, Kris does nothing. His motherboard tells him he should sit and wait for Tao to come home, and then they can resume their “boyfriend-like” activities. As previously stated, though Tao doesn’t treat Kris in the way Kris would like, he still makes an effort to interact with him.
Kris has picked up the habit of “blinking” from Tao. He understands humans need to “blink” in order to keep their eyes moist from the elements. Kris doesn’t think he has any moisture in his body but, in an effort to appear more human like, he blinks and, when prompted, inhales and exhales. Only the WF 112 model has this power to mimic the human body. Being human has nothing to do with just looking like one. In an effort to feel more at peace with himself, (and maybe…maybe sway Tao a little to his side), Kris blinks, inhales, exhales and eats when he can.
Tao assumes correctly when he mentions Kris is just a giant computer but he is wrong, and Kris knows it, when he says Kris can’t be taught.
“If you’re a computer, you only follow commands, right?” he says one day.
“I can learn too,” Kris says.
They sit on the couch in Tao’s living room; Tao is eating his noodle dinner and Kris is to his side, eyes on the television. The television shows a program Kris recognizes to be “humorous”, with absurd situations and improbable repercussions. The laugh track booms when the elder uncle character slips on his niece’s spilled banana pudding, hooting as he falls to the ground.
Kris doesn’t understand this kind of humor but Tao likes it. Whenever Tao laughs, Kris looks to him out of the corner of his eye. His smile. Kris’ own lips twitch whenever he sees or hears Tao’s laugh. It means he’s happy, at least that’s what Kris’ brain cavity tells him.
Beyond learning typical human discourses like the history Kris has seen in Tao’s notebooks, Kris records Tao’s facial reactions to certain stimuli and then tries to mimic them as well as he can. He’s already installed with chips for emotions but Kris would rather learn on his own than have it all fed to him.
“Is there anything you’d like to learn to do?” Tao asks during a commercial break.
Kris, with his eyes still on the television screen, says, “How to cook.” The niece character on the television show had been trying to create a magnificent treat for her uncle and ended up almost dislocating his right tibiofemoral components.
“Cooking…hmm, I guess that could be easy enough.” Tao stands and ushers Kris to the kitchen, empty noodle bowl in his hand. “I don’t want to cook anything too complicated or expensive so...” He opens one of the top cabinets and pulls out a square orange packet. More noodles. “There’s no way you can mess this up,” Tao promises, pulling out a pot. “Just fill this up with water. Wait a bit until he heats. Dump the noodles in and then dump whatever else you want to eat with the noodles. Beef, chicken, egg too but that comes later.”
He pushes the square packet into one of Kris’ hands, motioning for him to take the pot with his free hand.
Kris glances at the package, memorizing what the ideal noodles should look like. With the picture now running through many filters in his head, he starts heating the water and empties the noodles in when his internal timer has counted down a few minutes. Tao watches this all, silent. He makes no move to correct Kris or command him to do anything.
Kris stirs the pot and, with his eyes on the noodle packet, asks if Tao has any spices in his cupboard.
“Spices? Can you…taste?”
“We shall see,” Kris says quietly, eyes on the bubbling red contents of his pot.
After it’s all been cooked, he adds a little more spices than humanly sane, evident by the little strangled noise Tao makes. “Is that…are you sure you can eat that? I didn’t think you needed to eat anyway.”
“I do not. My energy is from charging. Nevertheless…” Kris lifts the small pot to his lips and takes a curious sip, attempting to savor the taste in his mouth.
“Well? What does it taste like?”
Kris clicks his tongue, taking another sip. He doesn’t taste anything.
Tao tries to restrain him when he makes to pick up the spices again, “Whoa! You’re going to use it all up—“
Kris dumps the entire container of powered spices into the pot.
Tao takes a step back. “What’d you do that for? Making it spicier won’t make you taste it more if you can’t.” Kris takes a larger sip, wincing when the temperature of his mouth approaches an uncomfortable level. He feels the heat of the water but his mouth can’t process the taste.
“I’m going to regret doing this but,” Tao angles Kris’ pot closer to him and, using a spoon, brings a small quantity of the broth to his lips.
The spoon hits the floor the moment after it hits his tongue. With a gurgled noise, Tao runs to the faucet and sticks his head under it, repeatedly washing his mouth over and over. “I…I think I just saw Hell…” he says when he’s calmed down.
Kris, still holding the pot, feels a pressing sense of defeat he’ll quickly become accustomed to in the coming months.
Humans can taste. He can’t taste. He’s not human, not yet. Living with a human has made Kris realize it’s hard…trying to pretend to be like Tao and then realizing he’s not. Tao sleeps every night, usually after hours of fiddling around on his computer. He retreats to bed with dark circles down to his cheeks and collapses, pulling himself into an easy sleep.
Kris doesn’t need sleep.
As one of the more efficient models, he only needs charging once a week and while Tao sleeps, Kris sits and listens to Tao’s heartbeat. In the darkness of the early morning in the corner of Tao’s room, Kris is hunched over in the corner, forehead to his knees.
Tao sleeps heavily and loud; Kris memorizes the intensity and frequency of Tao’s heart every night. Kris has something akin to a heart near his central processor but it’s not the same. It makes no noise as a real heart does. With Tao’s heartbeat surrounding him, Kris can pretend he is hearing his own heart in his own human chest.
Their first true “boyfriend” contact comes three weeks into their acquaintanceship. Tao comes home fuming, throwing his backpack against the floor and kicking at the couch.
“What is wrong?” Kris inquires, eyes on Tao’s tense figure.
“I don’t get it!” Tao yells, throwing his hands in the hair. “What’s a guy have to do to get someone else’s attention? Why won’t he look at me? Why?”
The ‘he’ here is Byun Baekhyun. Kris doesn’t know too much about Byun Baekhyun but lately he is all Tao talks about. The frequency of which Byun Baekhyun is mentioned in passing has risen from ten perfect to thirty three percent in the last week alone. Kris has been counting.
“Am I really that ugly, Kris?” Tao asks. “Am I really so fucking despicable that my own best friend of how many years doesn’t want me?” He looks down at his shoes, idly kicking at the couch. “I hate this. I hate liking someone who won’t look at me the same way. It makes me feel like crap, like I’m not good enough…but I am, right? I’m good enough.”
Kris’ internal computers have little to do with him taking Tao into his arms. He’s seen this on another television show in which the protagonist cried and her boyfriend held to her until she subsided. Humans like to be held. Tao doesn’t resist and wraps his arms around Kris’ mid-section, resting his head on his collarbone. Heat from Tao’s body seeps through Kris’ clothes; it feels… interesting. They’ve never been this close before.
“Being in a one-sided love is painful,” Tao confesses, sighing.
Kris doesn’t think he’ll ever get to experience love. It’s a human thing and he’s…he’s still not there yet.
“You know, you really would make a nice boyfriend.”
“It is my purpose.”
He hasn’t forgotten. “When you wake up, WF 112,” they had told him. “You will wake up with the person who will love you as much as you love them. Treat them well. Remember what your purpose is.”
Failing at the reason for his existence is not an option for Kris.
“And you’re warm too. I thought you’d be cold and all. You…you sound like my computer when it’s overheating.”
“It is normal,” Kris says. He raises a hand, hesitating in smoothing down Tao’s messy hair. Messes shouldn’t be made if they can be avoided.
Touching Tao so intimately stirs something dark and heavy in Kris, a feeling he doesn’t understand or thinks he has the capacity to understand. He holds Tao until Tao pulls away and retreats into his room. Byun Baekhyun is the
cause of Tao’s most obvious sadness. There’s no telling just how long Tao has felt this way for his neighbor but Kris is well aware of his feelings. It’s hard not to notice when Byun Baekhyun’s name falls from Tao’s lips so often. Kris doesn’t understand the fascination, not really.
Tao should be fascinated with him. He’s perfect; Byun Baekhyun is just a human. Kris will never err to the extent a human would. Tao bought him for a reason so Tao should like him as much and more than he likes Byun Baekhyun. But he doesn’t.
When Tao starts allowing Kris out of the apartment to roam freely around the neighborhood, Kris runs into Byun Baekhyun more times than he would like. His disdain for Byun Baekhyun is present from the moment they meet and only increases when Byun Baekhyun buys himself a new boyfriend.
Right away, everything about this one called Chanyeol upsets Kris. Something of such low a quality should never have been allowed out of the factory but it’s more…much more than that. Chanyeol smiles and laughs. He touches Byun Baekhyun and his call of “Baekhyunnie!” is heard through the halls of their apartment complex whenever Byun Baekhyun returns home from school.
Though his mechanics leave much to be desired, Chanyeol is more human than Kris knows he’ll ever be. Byun Baekhyun’s refusal to send Chanyeol back and how easily Byun Baekhyun goes along with whatever Chanyeol did or said make Kris think long and hard about his relationship with Tao.
Byun Baekhyun is partly the reason why Chanyeol acts so human. Byun Baekhyun doesn't think Chanyeol is just a toy but Tao…Tao thinks Kris is only as real as other electronics are. He likes to “joke around” (which, as Kris’ internal system tells him, means he’s not to be taken seriously) and say Kris is related to his laptop or for him to watch where he’s going so he doesn’t bump into his “cousin” (Tao’s handphone.)
Having never truly felt pain before, Kris suppresses his feelings when Tao’s
mouth continues to deny his humanity. It’s fine. Tao’s right after all. Kris isn’t human. He was made, not born. He was bought, not raised. Not loved. Tao purchased him from the boyfriend store because he was sick of pining over Byun Baekhyun but what was the point of that if he still pines while Kris waits in the corner of the room, mouth shut to refrain from vocalizing his desires.
He would never talk back to Tao or correct him. It’s not his place. If Tao wants to insist Kris doesn’t feel anything because he cannot taste anything, Kris will let him. Kris was created to make humans like Tao happy. He will keep Tao happy, even if it churns unfamiliar “emotions” in his core.
Emotion: an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness.
Kris doesn’t know what joy, sorrow, or hate feel like, or does he? Does he hate Byun Baekhyun? No, he doesn’t think he does.
Byun Baekhyun is merely an inconvenience because of how much Tao is constantly bothered by the rejection of his advances, now doubled by the arrival of Chanyeol.
“He’s defective, isn’t he?” Tao asks.
“Yes,” Kris looks out of the window, face turned toward the sunset. “He does not have long to live. Byun Baekhyun is making a mistake by keeping him so close.”
“Why does Baixian ge need with a broken doll?”
Kris wishes he were broken enough to smile as Chanyeol does.
Despite his thoughts, his composure remains. “Perhaps he will live more than one hundred days. It remains to be seen.”
“I shouldn’t have put that brochure in his mailbox. What the hell was I thinking? I should’ve just confessed…”
There he goes again.
Kris’ internal computers urge him to keep his head steady, facing toward the window and away from Tao behind him. He obeys but a small part of his insides tightens with something akin to grief (or as close to grief as he will get) at the mention of that Byun Baekhyun. He doesn’t want to see Byun Baekhyun. He doesn’t want Tao to see Byun Baekhyun. He wishes Byun Baekhyun and his Chanyeol would just disappear and leave Kris alone with… Tao.
Kris isn’t human; he understands this. He doesn’t have blood or need to breathe, eat or sleep but he still chooses to imitate these actions because, maybe if he does…maybe he deludes himself into thinking he’s human, maybe Tao would also…maybe Tao will think he’s human too.
Kris likes to people watch. Every day, after Tao departs for school, Kris leaves his apartment and walks a few blocks down to the neighborhood park. The park is small and with only a few healthy trees but the children of the neighborhood love to frequent it after school and Kris enjoys watching them.
Humans treat each other in many different ways. Sometimes they run and they push each other down, throwing their weight against each other in an effort to knock each other over. Sometimes they help each other up and run together, fingers intertwined. When their parents arrive to pick them up, the children either do not want to leave or run to their parents so quickly they can’t be stopped.
Tao used to be one of these children. Did he run and jump too? Did he climb trees? No matter how much Kris tries to be human now, in this present, he wasn’t always human, like Tao. He wasn’t born human; he’s not sure just how he was born. Kris was never a child. He never ran around, fell into the mud, helped someone up or climbed a tree. He never ran into his parents’ arms; he has no parents.
This…this human concept of “family”…of parents and their children, of children and their siblings, and their extended family, sometimes blood related, sometimes not. Tao has a family. He calls his parents almost every night and speaks to them in hushed Chinese, as if not wanting Kris to hear.
Kris tries to eavesdrop despite his motherboard telling him it’s a rude habit. He wants to know what members of the same human family say to each other. How do they treat each other? What’s it like to have parents? What’s this about the “unconditional love” human parents are supposed to have for their offspring? What happens if they do not love their human children? What becomes of them? How do they grow?
Every day, Kris sits in the park, under the shade of the only large tree, and watches the children play. Often, their ball toy finds itself near him and he
throws it back to them. His lips give an odd twitch when they thank him and do that human thing called “smiling.”
Kris smiles for the first time when a child, the smallest one of the familiar group, kisses his cheek after he hands her back the ball. “Wah! So handsome!” she says, giggling.
His smile is a subconscious reflex and stays on his face long after she’s bounced back to her group. He feels content he can help her keep her happiness.
The first time he smiles before Tao, Tao bangs his knee on the coffee table.
“Ow, fuck,” he hisses, rubbing his kneecap.
“Are you alright?”
“Just…” Still wincing, he looks up at Kris. Redness encroaches on his cheeks and he turns his head away when Kris continues to stare. “You have a nice smile.”
“I do?”
"Ah, this is so embarrassing,” Tao mumbles. “So embarrassing. Dammit.”
Kris practices his smile in the mirror after that. Laughing doesn’t come to him until a little while later, when his humor software upgrades itself after his first month.
Just like his first smile, his first laugh causes Tao to injure himself: he walks into the wall.
“You need to stop doing that,” Tao later tells him, holding a bag of ice to his forehead.
“Doing what?”
“Laughing. Smiling. Expressing happiness. All of that needs to stop.”
They’re in the kitchen: this time Kris cooks and Tao sits on a stool near the stove, frowning. “I do not understand…” Kris confesses, stirring his stew. He has learned how to cook more meals under Tao’s supervision.
Every night, Kris sips his creations, hoping to taste them.
Every night, he’s disappointed.
“It’s too…intense,” Tao explains. “I don’t really know how else to put it. When you smile, it’s like…it’s blinding. I can’t see anything else. It’s like there’s a laser coming from your mouth and it hits me right in the eyes.”
Kris takes this image literally and his brain conjures up an image of firing a beam of light at Tao from his mouth. He doesn’t believe that’s possible.
“Ah, don’t listen to me,” Tao hangs his head. “I’m just…you seem so human when you smile. It makes me forget you’re really not a…human. Happiness is a human thing, you know? At least, that’s what my philosophy professor said.”
His words trigger a switch in Kris’ mind. Happiness is a human thing. A human thing.
Happiness: the quality or state of being happy.
Happy: characterized by or indicative of pleasure, contentment, or joy.
If Kris can master this “happy” ideal, will he be more easily perceived as a human?
He tests it out.
Turning off the stove, he turns to Tao, softly calling his name. Hesitating, Tao looks to him.
The internal process for Kris’ smile is as follows.
First, his brain brings up the image of the little girl in the park and the way her facial muscles pulled on each other to pick up her mouth at the sides. Then, as happiness is more than just physical, Kris thinks of Tao’s smile and of the warmth that spreads through his core at such a sight.
When Kris smiles, Tao is on his mind and when Kris smiles, Tao can’t look away.
“It really…” Tao whispers, eyes sliding from one of Kris’ eyes to the other. “It really changes your entire face.” Tao stands up and walks forward, intent dark in his eyes.
Kris’ senses scramble for an explanation as to why he is staking toward him but nothing comes to mind. He’s seen children approach each other in this manner and then strike across the face but Tao would have no reason for striking him…he thinks.
“You’re…you’re really beautiful, you know?” Tao says, closer than he’s ever been.
The color of his eyes and the slope of Tao’s nose pull Kris in and he nods in response, not really understanding and wanting to appease Tao as much as he can. “I didn’t think you’d be so perfect. It’s really a little…scary how perfect you are. I wonder…”
“Wonder?”
Their voices are hushed. Kris feels Tao’s breath on his face, hot and intimate. For this purpose Kris was made but it’s really anyone’s guess who initiated the first kiss. Tao’s mouth is Kris’ first taste of anything. The realization he can taste makes Kris never want to break his kiss. He knows how this works and how his mouth is supposed to move, where to put his hands on Tao and how to make him shudder intimately.
But Kris doesn’t want to do anything else he’s programmed to do.
Already overwhelmed by the heat on his mouth, Kris kisses Tao in the kitchen until Tao’s heart is beating so wildly it’s all either of them hear.
That night, Tao allows him to rest in bed with him. They face each other in bed and though Kris knows Tao can’t see too well in the dark, he sees Tao perfectly and shudders when Tao caresses his cheek.
“Really, too perfect,” Tao mumbles.
Kris is quiet, choosing instead to bask in Tao’s attention for as long as he has it.
“I should’ve known you’d be a great boyfriend,” is Tao’s last sleepy statement. He passes into the world of temporary unconsciousness in Kris’ arms, ear to Kris’ chest.
Here is the first time Kris is aware of Tao’s heavy sleeping tendencies: he will not wake up, no matter how noisy it is or how much he is moved. Here, for the first time and until the day he’s not allowed to anymore, Kris brushes a kiss over Tao’s forehead. He doesn’t even stir. The kiss and the many to come are secrets, known only to Kris.
Whatever his feelings for Tao are, he does not know how to express them outside of kissing. He does not know what to say to make Tao stop talking about Byun Baekhyun and see only the man who exists solely for his happiness. With every kiss, Kris lets himself share the feelings burning away in his core.
Even if Tao never realizes what he’s been doing, night after night, good day or bad day, in sickness or in health, Kris kisses him and waits for the day Tao will open his heart for good.
Kris waits for Tao even after the end.
Their relationship changes ever so slightly over time.
Tao no longer mentions Kris’ lack of humanity and Kris eagerly deludes himself into believing he is growing closer and closer to becoming fully human. Tao makes it easy for him now, bringing him places and introducing him as his “boyfriend.”
Kris interacts with other humans based on the information stored in his motherboard. He smiles and laughs at their attempts at humor; he asks inquiring questions and makes observations about their external environment to keep the conversation going. Humans love to talk about the weather so weather is always the first thing Kris mentions. His smile and manner of speaking charm them, especially his Korean fluency despite Tao telling them he is of Chinese origin.
Tao also doesn’t tell them Kris is technically a “toy” bought and shipped from an artificial intelligence store so all the humans Kris meets treat him as if he’s one of them. The interactions are intoxicating.
It’s only with those humans that Kris acts as his internal systems dictate him to; with Tao, he tends to avoid their commands and acts on his own, human instincts. Because of this, he is a bit quieter around Tao, still stuck with the idea he mustn’t do anything to displease the reason for his existence. Tao doesn't seem to mind.
He takes Kris to his wushu practice twice a week and allows him to sit in the practice room, but only if he sits in the farthest corner so he doesn’t disturb the other practitioners.
The practice is held in the gymnasium of Tao’s university. One half of the floor is covered in mats to protect bodies from the hard floor while the other is bare and quite foreboding in the orange light. While Tao works on his discipline and tones his body, Kris meditates with his eyes closed. In his mind’s eyes, he plays clips of wushu competitions and further extends his knowledge of the skill by recording these events in his head.
Tao enjoys wushu. He says it is the closest he will ever get to flying.
All humans have an innate desire to fly, Kris understands after some research. Flight is freedom. To be as a bird and leave all troubles behind, gliding into the unknown to start anew, is every human’s true wish. The desire grows because of its impossibility. Today’s wushu class begins as all the others do but Kris doesn’t feel like closing his eyes and instead carefully watches Tao, memorizing the positions of his body.
“The most important thing about jumping isn’t the jump itself,” Tao has a habit of explaining. “It’s the landing. If I can jump in whatever way I need to and land in only one way, I have mastered total control over my body. I disciplined it a little more every time I land correctly.”
Because of this, Kris pays more attention to Tao’s landings than anything else. He’s an awe of how he’s able to move his body in such complex ways and still manages to finish without losing his footing.
Today, however, something goes wrong.
Tao’s flip is uncoordinated and he falls off the practice padding, hitting his back on the cold floor. His pained groan brings Kris to his feet but he hesitates in going any further. He doesn’t know what he has to do. Tao’s instructors and a few friends run to him, asking if he’s alright and trying to pick him up off the floor. He refuses their help and tries to push them away, face scrunched up in pain as he sits up. Kris takes a cautious step forward.
“Don’t touch me!” Tao snaps when one of his classmates tries to take his hand. He holds his back with one hand and tries to stand, legs unsteady. Kris is at his side at an instance, computerized eyes locked on Tao’s hand putting pressure on his lower back.
“I’m fine,” Tao says, trying to shake Kris away as well. “This happens all the time. I just need to go home for the day and relax.”
The stress is in his vertebrae.
Tao refuses Kris’ touch all the way out of the gymnasium and insists on walking. He stops every few steps to hold himself and wince, gritting his teeth so hard a vein throbs on the side of his head.
Almost home, Tao suddenly stops and sags against a building.
“Tao…” The new unpleasant feeling in the pit of Kris’ core is uncomfortable. Tao’s in pain and he won’t let himself be helped; Kris doesn’t know what else to do. He hasn’t known what to do since this entire thing started. Tao needs to go to the hospital and checked by human doctors who know how his body is supposed to work. He shouldn’t be so stubborn.
"I can’t…” Tao whispers, covering his face with his trembling hands. “It hurts…”
When Kris is close enough, Tao digs his fingers into the fabric of Kris’ shirt, pulling it into his hands and working it as his painful back throbs on.
“Hospital,” Kris whispers into Tao’s hair. “You need to go to a hospital.”
“No,” Tao shakes his head. “No hospitals. I hate them. I’ll die before they ever
get to me.”
Kris is not one to disobey. “Where does it hurt?” he asks instead. Tao takes his hand and presses it into his back, hissing and pulling on Kris’ shirt with his other hand. There aren’t a lot of people on the street at this time of day. Kris’ hand is cold and Tao, approaching delirium and refusing to move from his spot, slips Kris’ hand up the back of his shirt. “Please, I…”
“I cannot help you,” Kris says, pressing his cool hand on Tao’s cool back.
Tao shudders, shaking his head again. “No one can. I just…I need to go home and get some ice on it. Give me a minute.”
Sixty seconds go by and Tao still doesn’t move. He breathes heavily against Kris’ collarbone, through he doesn’t feel as if he’s splitting apart from the inside out anymore.
Lulled by Kris’ cool massage, Tao doesn’t move until Kris’ hand has lost its coolness. Kris helps Tao to the apartment and up the stairs with a steady arm around his middle.
Tao stumbles to his bedroom after bagging ice and drops himself down to his bed, wincing and hissing. Kris rearranges his ice pack. Walking around the bed, Kris lowers the blinds and is about to start making dinner when Tao’s small voice calls him back. “I will make dinner.”
“No, just…stay with me. Please?”
Please.
After some quick rearranging, Tao presses himself to Kris’ chest and makes
Kris holds his ice pack flat to his back. The ice pack is cool to Kris but freezing to Tao, whose teeth start chattering before he falls asleep.
Kris does his best to wrap them both up and mentally wills his body to turn up its core temperature to erase Tao’s chills. Tao sleeps fitfully for the first time since Kris has known him. He moves and shakes in his sleep, upsetting his back and crying out whenever he finds himself in a painful position. Kris steers him back to his chest with a gentle but firm hand, rubbing his back long after the ice pack has melted.
He still thinks Tao should see a doctor but a small, very selfish and insignificant part of him is glad to be able to provide comfort for Tao in this small way.
Tao doesn’t settle down until a little before sunrise and just when he does, Kris kisses his forehead. Kris doesn’t need sleep and doesn’t know how to sleep but right here, with Tao quietly huffing on his chest, it’s easy for him to close his eyes and pretend.
Perhaps in another universe, there is a human Kris and a human Tao. Perhaps human Tao is injured one day and human Kris spends the entire night taking care of him, only falling asleep when his boyfriend feels comfortable enough to do so first.
Perhaps human Kris is exhausted now and pulls Tao closer into his arms, rubbing his back slowly. Perhaps human Kris falls into a peaceful, well deserved rest a little after Tao and perhaps they both wake up in each other’s arms, in love and happy with each other.
Tao thanks him for his nighttime vigil a day later. “Thanks for…you know.” Tao rests a hand on his back but he doesn’t look to be in any pain, not after taking his medication and taking a quick trip to the school medic for a brief check up. “The school nurse said it was nothing serious, she just urged me to be more careful. I’m really thankful…you were there.”
“It is my purpose to serve you.”
I only exist because of you.
When Tao is feeling better, he takes Kris on a “date.”
At the first mention of the word, Kris conjures up an image of a fruit and wonders just how Tao will take him on the fruit if it seems so small but further clarification reveals a “date” is an outing.
“Couples go on dates,” Tao says when they leave the apartment.
“Oh.”
The news excites Kris but still, he keeps it off his face. He has controlled his feelings for Tao for so long, it’s becoming harder to actively express them. He
dares not ask Tao about this human thing called “love” or if they’re supposed to feel it for each other.
How is Kris supposed to know he’s in love?
Is this love akin to an illness? Are there symptoms? Or does the knowledge simply transcend one’s being and light their soul aflame?
Kris is further against thinking of his human love because he believes he’s not able to experience it. Love is a human thing, like happiness.
Kris can feel happiness, but only to a small degree. There’s a jump in his chest when Tao intertwines their fingers and he looks down at their hands. This is the same act children are ford of doing when they play but it feels so much more intimate when it’s done to him.
Though he knows the neighborhood quite well now, Kris allows Tao to lead him around. Tao doesn’t want to take Kris to any food carts because he knows Kris can’t taste them but Kris insists.
“I can taste now,” he says confidently. “Though I can only taste a few things.”
“Like what?” Tao pays for their fish balls on a stick and turns to him. Kris’ secret smile blooms before he can properly contain it. Tao is confused and asks again what are the things Kris can taste but Kris refuses to say more until they are further away from the food cart woman.
“You.”
Tao chokes on his fish ball, smacking his chest. “W-What the hell does that mean? Me?”
“When we kiss, I can taste your mouth. To me, it is the only thing that has a distinct taste.”
Now flushing brightly in the evening sun, Tao huffs. “That’s so embarrassing! You say the most embarrassing things, gah!”
Kris finishes eating his snack and throws the stick into a trashcan next to them.
“So…”
“Yes?”
Tao nibbles on the end of his stick, cheeks still flushed. “What do I taste like to you then? I mean…assuming you can taste me and can’t taste anything else.”
“It is hard to describe.” Kris zips up Tao’s jacket; Tao slips his hands into Kris’ sweatshirt pockets.
“You can tell me,” Tao insists. “Who am I gonna tell anyway? Who wants to know what I taste like? No one.”
Kris smiles, lightly pulling on Tao’s empty food stick. “You taste warm and wet and always very…very nice. Ah, this is very hard to explain…”
Tao covers his face, “Okay! Okay! Forget I asked. Warm and wet...I don’t know what I’m doing with you. I don’t know why…” Tao sighs, dropping his hands from his face. “Whatever. I don’t care. I don’t have to know ‘why’ and I don’t
think you would care to know either. Come closer.”
“But we are in public—“
“Hey, I’ve had too many people kiss in front of me in my life. I’m sure other people can deal with it like I did.”
‘Happiness’ is what Kris feels when Tao roughly pulls him into an empty corner of the street and kisses him.
A light, floating feeling originates in his chest cavity and spreads throughout his limbs. He has to hold onto Tao when he feels as if he’s going to float away and into the sky, even when his motherboard tells him it’s impossible. The feeling only doubles when Tao intertwines their fingers again, pulling back from the kiss to press his face into Kris’ chest. Tao stops then, ear pressed up against Kris’ chest.
“Oh,” he says. “That’s right. You don’t have a heart…but I can still hear something. It’s so…so weird.”
No.
“Tao,” Kris smiles, cupping his chin. Tao lets Kris kiss him again, hands still around Kris’ waist. Kris doesn’t want to hear how unhuman he is. He knows. He knows it too well but he doesn’t stop trying, for Tao and for himself.
Tao’s been doing so well, not mentioning Kris’ short comings and Kris is weak and imperfect because he can’t bear to hear them, not when he’s this happy.
He’s silenced Tao this time but he knows it won’t always be like this. The next time Tao brings him up, he has to face the cold, hard truth that his delusions
of being human are just that. Delusions.
No matter how much he enjoys being with Tao, no matter how much he kisses Tao, holds him, talks to him, smiles at him…Kris will never be as human as Tao. And that’s alright, it’s fine. He doesn’t want to be as human as Tao. He just wants to be human enough.
He doesn’t ever want to hear about all he lacks, not when he still believes he can make Tao happy just as he is.
The relationship progresses smoothly and Kris is lulled into a false sense of security. He still visits the park every day and watches the children play and every night, he waits for Tao to come home with dinner already cooked.
Tao is impressed by his quick learning and promises to teach Kris how to cook mainland dishes to perfection. Kris is eager to learn. Being of an ethnicity or of a race is not something he readily understands: those are human concepts. Tao identifies strongly with his Chinese culture and so Kris will do all he can to make Tao happy and proud of his food.
Kris thinks he is slowly beginning to taste human food but Tao’s mouth is still the only thing he can truly identify. Sometimes, they kiss after dinner, when Tao is full and happy.
Other times, they kiss on the couch, while “watching” on of Tao’s favorite shows. Tao tries to kiss when he’s tired and falls asleep with his arms around Kris’ shoulder, lips parted and swollen.
Kris enjoys watching Tao sleep, especially if Tao is close to him. He wonders what Tao dreams about when he’s smiling like that. He also wonders if there are times in which Tao wishes Kris were human.
Kris would be dishonest if he tried to deny he sometimes shared the same wish. Living with a human is beautiful and always interesting, but living with Tao as a human would be all the better. Then and only then would Kris not have to wonder and feel less than he is when Tao looks at him with narrowed, curious eyes. His motherboard tells him he’s perfect and there’s nothing for him to worry about. He is a robot. He was built for someone like Tao to enjoy and take pleasure from. That is the extent of his existence.
The human heart Kris thinks is beginning to grow and flourish in his chest begs to differ. His human heart wants Tao to think of him and only him, just as Kris thinks of Tao and only Tao. His human heart wants to love him completely and honestly, as humans do when they feel such strong emotions for each other.
His human heart doesn’t want there to be a doubt in Tao’s mind about who Kris is, not what he is. Kris is not a thing, a toy. Toys don’t have feelings. Toys don’t wait around for classes to end. Toys don’t cook, feed, kiss, or hold
someone as they sleep. Kris does it all. He’s not a toy. He can’t be one. He refuses that definition for himself.
There are a lot of things Kris is and isn’t but being a toy is the first thing in the “isn’t” category, right before “human.” He’s not a toy but he’s not a human; he’s somewhere in between and he’s beginning to accept it.
He only hopes Tao accepts it too.
Tao doesn’t.
Tao starts pulling away from him toward the middle of Spring. Kris doesn’t know what he’s done wrong so he tries to ignore it and keeps the charade up, smiling and kissing Tao just as he always does.
Tao stops kissing back.
Kris never knows true pain up until the day Tao pushes him away and locks himself in his bedroom.
“Don’t come in!” Tao screams, voice hoarse.
“Why?” Kris asks. His hands rests on the doorknob, waiting for Tao to open the door at any minute so he may enter.
“I can’t keep doing this anymore.”
From the other side of the door, Kris hears the first sobs emerge from Tao’s chest. “I can’t. I’m sick of playing this fucking game. It’s not fair for me to love you like this when you’re not real.”
“But I am,” Kris insists.
It is the first time and last time he talks back.
“I am. I am real. Tao…Tao, open the door.”
“No! No, you’re fucking not real! You were never real. Y-You’re a fucking toy and I can’t…I want someone real.”
“I’m real,” Kris repeats, his forehead on the door. Panic flood his chest as he disobeys his motherboard; it tells him to silence himself and accept Tao’s thoughts, but Kris can’t. His human heart won’t let him. “Tao…Tao, open the door.”
Tao sobs, fists coming down on the door. “Shut the fuck up! Buying you… buying you was the worst mistake I have ever made. Who the fuck lets people fall in love with things? What kind of sick fuck?”
“I am real!” Kris yells. “I’m real. You can hear me. You can see me. You can touch me. You can taste me when we kiss. I hold you at night. You...You love me. What more do I have to do? Tell me…tell me and I will do it. I would do anything for you—“
“Shut up! Shut up, please, I just…shut up.” Tao bangs on the door, hoping to silence him. He cries so easily and it tears at the very center of Kris’ real being. Kris tries to push his way in but Tao pushes back from the other side. “Stop it! Stop trying to get it! You’ve already gotten into my fucking heart, what more do you want? And it’s…it’s not fair. This love isn’t fair. It’s always me who ends up falling in love with the wrong people, always me—“
“I love you,” Kris confesses through the door. “I love you, Huang Zi Tao.”
“Stop—“
“I love you and I am real. I am real and I see only you—“
With a broken sob, Tao kicks at the door.
Kris’ motherboard alerts him it’s going to take over his system and override his emotions if he doesn’t calm his processor down. Kris doesn’t want to stop but Tao’s cries hurt more than he ever thought anything could. Is this what humans have to face in their lifetimes? How is such a crushing sense of defeat and profound loss even possible?
Tao locks himself in all night. Kris waits in the living room for him to come out for the day, head in his hands. Even after all they have been through together, he’s not surprised Tao still feels the way he does.
A small part of Kris had hoped Tao would open his eyes, and his heart, and
understand that Kris is real even if he isn’t human but Tao’s thinking has not swayed.
When he finally emerges, he refuses to look at Kris and doesn’t answer to his name. To Kris, who has known Tao can have his cold moments but has never been on the receiving end of such hostility, it hurts more than anything that happened the night before. He wants to hold Tao again and console him but Tao keeps his distance and goes off to school without a word. Distance is such a tricky thing. It seems impossible for two beings that live together and love each other to go a day without speaking but it happens. Kris waits for Tao to speak to him when he comes home, eyes on Tao’s downturned face.
Kris has said all he needs to and he’s made his feelings more than clear. If Tao loves him too, he doesn’t understand why there needs to be any confusion or resistance because they’re two people in love so they should just…hold each other. All Kris wants to hear is Tao’s very human heart beat in his ears lulling him into the perfect world. What Tao says first stops all other thoughts.
“I’m sending you back.”
Even Kris’ motherboard grinds to a halt. “Back? Back where?”
Tao clears his throat. “To…to wherever you came from. The Boyfriend Store, I think. I don’t think it’s right for me to…keep you.”
No.
“But—“
Tao cuts him off with a glare, “There’s nothing you can say that’ll make me change my mind and you’re not welcome to try. I hate myself for falling into the hype. I hate myself for dragging Baixian ge into it too and now…now he
doesn’t even need me. He has him. He won’t even have him for long but does he care? No. He’s so fucking stupid.”
Baixian.
Even in the end, it’s always Baixian.
Even after they’ve kissed, even after they’ve told each other they’re in love, it still Baixian. Tao doesn’t want to love Kris; he wants Baixian. He always has and he always will.
Kris had been a fool and now, he knows it.
“Don’t look like that,” Tao says with red eyes. “I’m sure you’ll get a much better owner after me. Maybe someone who won’t mind that you’re not… someone who’ll like you just as you are.”
Kris doesn’t tell him what happens to beings of his kind that are sent back. He doesn’t think he even has a clear idea of what happens to the robots who revisit the Boyfriend Store for the final time but he knows it’s not good. Once one goes in, they don’t come out.
The Boyfriend Store doesn’t resell their models; they remake them by destroying everything wrong about the original.
Tao honestly sounds like he thinks Kris will be in a better place and Kris finally listens to his motherboard and keeps his mouth shut.
He will be sent back.
“Can I just…kiss you one last time?”
It’s cruel.
Kris obeys like the toy Tao thinks he still is.
He stands and takes Tao’s face into his hands, eyes on Tao’s lips. Tao’s tears interrupt their kiss but he refuses to pull himself away, ignoring the salt now added into their mouths. So this is what tears taste like.
“I’m sorry,” Tao says quietly, still crying. He hasn’t stopped all afternoon. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be a better owner for you. I’m sorry I…”
Kris shakes his head, drawing their lips back into another kiss. His motherboard has temporarily taken away his ability to speak and with good reason.
Inside his skull, his “brain” weeps and tells Tao all Kris is not allowed to say. It tells Tao that Kris will never have another owner like him or another owner at all. It tells Tao that Kris loves him and will always love him, even when he’s been remade into someone or something else. It tells Tao Kris’ silence is needed because the words he wants to say would only cause pain for the both of them and enough of Tao’s tears have been shed.
Live happy Tao, Kris thinks. He wipes Tao’s tears away with his thumbs, watching as Tao cries uncontrollably and tries to hide his face in Kris’ chest. Why are you sending me away if it hurts you so much? Keep me. Don’t let me go. Please. I want to be your human. Teach me more recipes. Let me hold you. Love me.
“I have to let you g-go,” Tao says, as if reading his thoughts. “I can’t…I tried to forget what you were but I couldn’t and it’s killing me because I…I’m not
strong enough to keep you here with me. Y-You’re…fantastic, I’m sure you’ll find someone better than me. I don’t deserve someone perfect like you. I don’t deserve anyone…”
Kris thinks to Byun Baekhyun. He’s not perfect because he is human. Humans aren’t perfect and Kris isn’t either. Nothing or no one is truly perfect in this world.
If Kris were perfect, Tao’s resolution to throw him away wouldn’t hurt.
His world is ending and soon it’ll be all over.
Kris holds Tao until he’s calmed down enough and then Tao invites him back to his bed, perhaps for the last time. Tao cries in his sleep and Kris does his best to carefully wipe his tears away with a small napkin.
The last kiss on Tao’s forehead is the one Kris remembers right up until the very end. He takes in the sheen of Tao’s hair and the warmth of his skin. His unsteady breathing puffs hot air into Kris’ face and Kris inhales as much of it as he can. He wants to keep as much of Tao as he can.
Half way through the night, Tao awakens and reaches for Kris in the dark, hands just brushing his chin. Kris moves in and is given another wet kiss. “They’re…they’re coming to pick you up in the morning,” Tao confesses, hands on Kris’ neck. “I’m s-sorry…”
“Do not worry about me,” Kris says, swallowing Tao’s whimpers. Robots do not die. It’s not considered “death” to the people who have created them, just as their coming into existence isn’t a “birth.” They are deprogrammed and taken apart, just like any other piece of machinery. The process isn’t painful but to a robot who has just touched humanity, the emotional death is brutal. They kiss until sunrise, when the birds on the tree outside Tao’s window begin their daily song.
Tao clings to Kris until there’s a knock at the door and even then, he doesn’t want to answer it. Tao’s human ambivalence weighs heavily on Kris and further wounds his spirit but if something is coming, Kris doesn’t want to run from it.
He answers the door instead.
“WF 112?” the man in the long coat asks, eyes wide. “You’re the one he’s returning?”
Kris nods.
The man gasps, “But…but why?”
Seconds later, Tao stumbles into view, furiously rubbing at his eyes. He looks to the man in the long coat and asks, in a small, pained voice. “You’ll…you’ll find a nice home for him, right? Someone better than me?”
The man in the long coat looks to Kris; Kris nods again, closing his eyes.
“Why, yes. Of course,” the man tells Tao, patting him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry! WF 112 resells faster than you think, you’d be surprised.”
“O-Oh…can you give us a moment?”
At Kris’ third nod, the man in the long coat closes the door and waits on the other side. “I…I don’t know what else to tell you, I just…” Tao scans Kris’ face. “Thank you.”
“I should be the one thanking you,” Kris says instead.
They stare at each other, at a complete loss for words.
Tao looks as if he’s about to say more when there’s a knock on the door. “GGoodbye…” Tao says weakly, eyes welling up with tears again.
Kris’ hands twitch and his motherboard shuts off his speaking abilities. He can only nod and hope Tao understands Kris is more grateful to him than he’ll ever be to anyone else.
The man in the long coat, or Jongdae as Kris’ processor correctly identifies him, opens the door again and tells Kris they have to be on their way soon since the Korean branch of the store is so far away. Kris relents.
When the door closes for the final time on Tao’s apartment, they hear the sound of something dropping to the ground and then heart wrenching cries shake the walls. Jongdae takes Kris by the arm and steers him out of the building before he can go back.
“I just don't understand it,” Jongdae says as he opens the back of his truck. Inside is a charging tube for Kris, the last thing he’ll ever see before they deprogram him. “You were the perfect one.” Jongdae talks to himself as he straps Kris in for the ride, opening a small keypad and typing in the necessary codes. “The perfect one with the perfect face and the perfect knowledge.”
Once Kris is strapped in, Jongdae types in the code that overruns Kris’ motherboard and his inhibitions are then released. His arms twitch in their holdings and he wants to escape and run back to Tao…but Tao is the reason why Kris is here. Tao doesn’t want him anymore. Kris can’t make himself forget that. The charging pod closes and Jongdae salutes Kris from behind the glass, jumping down to close the backside of his truck.
When Kris is bathed in darkness, the thoughts come. He sees Tao’s face, as clear as ever, in his minds eyes. He feels the heat of their kisses and the pounding of his heart as Kris held him in his sleep.
He relives the first day he tried to cook and the night Tao was injured and Kris spent the entire night making sure he was comfortable and not in too much pain. He thinks of the last kiss he gave Tao, of Tao’s taste in his mouth and body trembling under his fingers. He remembers their “date” and the days he spent watching the children and learning how to smile from one of them. He thinks of Tao’s palm to his palm, of their hands together and fingers interlocking as they walked down the Seoul streets.
Tao had wanted someone who saw only him, who loved only him. But he didn’t want just anyone or anything: he wanted a human. Kris just wasn’t enough. Kris’ confession, his kisses, his touch wasn’t enough for the human still painfully enamored with another. Kris never was to Tao what his Baixian ge was to him and even now, right before the end, Kris hopes Baixian will come around.
Even if he dislikes him for taking so much of Tao’s attention, Kris only wishes for Tao’s happiness. He doesn’t want Tao to cry ever again for as long as he lives.
He hopes Tao finds someone more human, who will love him more than Kris ever did, though Kris knows it’s impossible.
The last image he sees in his mind’s eyes is Tao, flushing after asking Kris what he tastes like.
