A/N: Y'all thought I was gone yet again? kekeke nope! How could i leave my story when I've hit the ? muahahaha anyways, yes I was absent because I had my finals and I was studying TT TT but I'm done with my exams now so yay! I really enjoyed writing this chapter tbh LOL. Nonetheless, enjoy! <3

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Himchan’s footsteps resounded through the hallways as I followed him closely. Despite the fact that the other laboratories were dark and soundless, Himchan still swerved his head side to side, briefly scanning into the labs, probably afraid that someone would overhear whatever conversation we were about to have.

He then suddenly stops in his tracks, his hands slipping into his trouser pockets.

Himchan finally turned to me.

“Well, I certainly hope no one is here to overhear our conversation.”

I nodded, this time it being my turn to rotate my head left and right to check.

“I’ll get straight to the point Youngjae”, he continued, “Did you do anything to Daehyun?”

I froze in place.

. Does he-

“Do I know?” Himchan prodded, as if he had read my mind. I snapped my head up, meeting his dark gaze.

I clenched my fists. My brain was doing its best to generate an answer, but nothing surfaced, and thus I was rendered speechless.

“It was a lucky guess”, Himchan talked again, his sentence obviously dripping with sarcasm.

I shut my eyes, contemplating whether to just reveal the truth to Himchan. He had probably found out, but I had no idea how the hell he did.

“How much do you know?” I returned the question back at him.

Himchan’s eyelids lowered, and he exhaled.

“I’ve studied robotics for so many years, I know how robots function. And truthfully, I was taken aback when I heard about you wanting to create a humanoid back then. And when I finally did meet your masterpiece, Daehyun… behaved rather erratically. Well, it could have been just me. But I noticed when I came over for inspection, I would notice Daehyun’s eyes, his eyes would follow your every movement and would smile from time to time, but only at you.”

“Daehyun…” I whispered.

Himchan’s expression softened as he took a few steps towards me. “I know you really care about him because you build him from scratch-“

“It’s more than that”, I cut him off, looking up to meet my Professor’s eyes.

Himchan seemed to be taken aback but being the classy Prof he was, he maintained his composure, only blinking in surprise.

“Hyung… remember the day you took me as your student? Like you asked me the reason why I wanted to take robotics because it was such a tough field of study I wanted to major in.”

Himchan nodded, his expression clearly showing both confusion and curiosity.

“You mentioned that it was because you had a huge passion for it. It was sure a rather generic answer”, his voice dropped an octave. “But why would you suddenly bring it up again? That was so long ago.”

“I know… because it wasn’t the full reason”, my voice slowly dropping into a whisper.

“When I was a child, I lived near the woods, so I didn’t have much human interaction. But then one day I met a boy was near my age and we would play together all day. He was someone I held so closely to my heart.”

Himchan tilted his head, and I could feel his gaze boring into my skull.

“And his name was...” he trailed off, his eyes widening a little.

“Jung Daehyun.”

Himchan blinked. “I can see something connecting here. But that’s all?”

“N-no.. There’s more to this. So eventually, I… fell in love with him. But I never told Daehyun that because I didn’t want to ruin the friendship between us. Maybe he would have thought that me liking him was weird.

But then on the day I decided to muster up my courage and tell him, he disappeared. Completely. Without a trace. The only thing that was left behind was a microchip.

I never heard from him ever again. Since then, I’ve been harboring these feelings for him until now. And I thought that maybe if… just if… I could make a Daehyun… even it wasn’t really him…”

Okay… Youngjae, breathe. Hold yourself together.

Himchan had a sympathetic look in his eyes somehow. I wondered how pissed he’ll be if I told him the worst part of the story.

“So I did. I studied robotics under you and Yongguk-hyung’s care. During the course of study, I tried to scan the microchip many times, only to no avail. And thus I decided to create a microchip from scratch.

Then, I began creating Daehyun.

However… on the day I had finally completed the body of Daehyun, I had just left the insertion of the microchip for the memory function to be inserted into the heart, but I made a crucial mistake.”

Himchan bit his lower lip, his arms crossed on his torso.

“I had mixed up the microchips up, and ended up inserting in the erratic one instead.”

“So, what happened to Daehyun then? Did the erratic microchip had some kind of virus in it?”

“No. That microchip… gave Daehyun emotions.”

This time, Himchan’s eyes widened in shock. “Youngjae you know that that…”

“… is illegal. I know, hyung.”

Himchan took a step forward, and ended up wrapping his arms around me, taking me by surprise.

“It must have been hard on you”, he whispers softly into my ear, rubbing my back.

I didn’t even notice that I had started crying until a few tears trickled down my cheeks.

When Himchan released me, I quickly wiped them away, although Himchan had evidently seen my crying face already.

“Gosh you idiot. You should have really told us. I know we stressed about the emotions thingy but that was considered an accident that I would have given you a long lecture about it, I’ll save it. I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out. No wonder you were absent for quite a few times from work. Don’t keep all the stress to yourself, Youngjae.”

I nodded, feeling slightly better that I had let out a bit of the tension. I was so thankful that Himchan had been so understanding.

A buzz was suddenly heard, and I turned my attention Himchan’s phone as he fished it out from his lab coat. He unlocked his phone as the phone brightness lit up a small area of the hallway of where we were at. “Oh it’s from Junhong”, Himchan said.

“What did he say?”

He began reading the text aloud, although rather quickly and monotonously, “Hyung! We’ve got a problem here! A bunch of…” and he trailed off, leaving me curious.

Panic started to rush my veins when Himchan glanced right at me after reading the text, worry and tension evident on his face.

“Youngjae, we have to get back. Now. The Droids are where Junhong and rest are right now.”

“The Droids at where Junhong is? Wait, that means…”

Daehyun is there too.

Adrenaline rushed into my veins as panic settled in. Himchan pushed past me and grabbed my hand, as I ran along behind him, praying hard.

Daehyun…. Daehyun… please be alright… Don’t let them take you away… Not so soon….

Youngjae stared at Daehyun, who stared back at him with such innocent fear in his eyes as he was held back by those horrible men. Daehyun didn’t know what was going on, Youngjae understood. He doesn’t deserve to be involved in this mess that Youngjae carelessness created.

As Youngjae was about to reach out to grab his lover, he too, was suddenly held back by another two men that he was slowly detesting.

Daehyun was slowly turning more agitated by the moment, causing the rapid growth of fear in Youngjae.

Why aren’t the other professors doing anything?!

The brim of Youngjae’s fears overflowed when Daehyun was finally tested as illegal.

Tears began trickling nonstop down the professor’s checks for the worst had already happened right before his very eyes.

“Oh. Look what we have here—an illegal robot.

I never thought you would be capable to craft such a vessel, Professor Yoo.

And it seems like the error in this vessel is that he has emotions. What a discovery.”

No. Don’t take him away. Please.

“Let’s go”, the men said, pulling Deahyun along towards the door.

Daehyun continued to struggle stubbornly despite their iron grip on him, his eyes never leaving the gaze of his master.

Youngjae felt his heart shattering into pieces, seeing his humanoid wanting to reunite with him, but the opposite happening instead. He felt like such a useless person, staying helpless due being physically held back himself, only able to stare at his crying Daehyun, who was struggling only to no avail.

With the last ounce of strength Daehyun had, he screamed.

“Youngjae!”

Youngjae’s eyes widened, his breathing hitched. Daehyun had never called out Youngjae’s name before like that.

Daehyun…

No. He wasn’t going to allow anyone to take Daehyun away from him.

Daehyun was taken away from me once. There’s no way in hell I’ll allow him to be taken away from me the second time.

A sudden surge of electricity cackled through Youngjae’s veins, causing his vision to turn blue and heightened. Through his new gaze, he acknowledged the weaknesses of those men in suits, painted in red in his own vision, which he had already recognized as enemies.

The skin on his arm tore open, revealing many mechanical steel parts and red wirings instead of blood, flesh and bones that he should have.

Everyone in the room was taken aback, absolutely in shock. His fist clenched, a bright cyan light glowing from it.

“Let him go”, Youngjae hissed, his mind only being able to feel the rage at the tense moment.

No one in the room dared to budge.

“Hold him down!” The man in the dark shades yelled in midst of the tensed atmosphere.

“Get AWAY FROM ME”, Youngjae growled, his curled up fist strong enough to be lifted up and slammed against one of the men who held him back. Sparks cackled in the room as the humanoid’s face got badly dented that the metallic wirings were peeking out of his cracked head.

Once one side of the grip on him was released, Youngjae spun around and grabbed onto the other humanoid’s face, pulling the skin off, even more sparks started to escape, but none harming Youngjae.

Just like the fate of the previous humanoid, but suffering from worse injuries, he fell behind, completely unable to function.

Youngjae turned quickly, realizing another two humanoids charging for him. But before Youngjae could react and fight back, one of the humanoids fell limp in front of him. As the humanoid fell onto the floor, the culprit came into view. Junhong was heaving, probably from the adrenaline rush, with a steel wrench in his trembling hands.

The other functioning humanoid grabbed Youngjae by the neck to his surprise and contracted his fist as he lifted Youngjae up into the air effortlessly. Youngjae struggled in his admirations, gasping for air as he clawed onto the wrists of his opponent.

The humanoid continued to tighten his grip, causing the formation of bruises on Youngjae neck as he continued to struggle for air.

He tightened his grip on the wrists of the humanoid, his strength amplified as he managed to crush one side of his opponent’s hands, the broken hand releasing the grip on his throat and dropping him onto the floor. Youngjae spared no time and got up on his feet again, throwing a hard punch right at the abdomen of the humanoid, which recoiled in damage. Amongst the red covered his vision, he had pin pointed the weakness of the humanoid that blinked in crimson.

And thus, his punch had turned into a claw almost quickly as he tore out the suit and skin, along with the wirings of the humanoid, causing the robot to immediately turn limp and lifeless.

From the corner of his vision, Youngjae noticed the man in shades leaving and before he was about to go on a rampage and snap his neck, Yongguk delivered an elbow right at the nape of the man’s neck, causing him to fall unconscious.

Youngjae panted to catch his breath, feeling the wave of fatigue hitting him, but he mentally pushed himself to save Daehyun who was still in captive.

As the two men turned to their heels to escape the chaos, Himchan managed to grab onto one of the humanoids and yanked him back, causing Daehyun to stumble as one of grips from the humanoid was released. But the remaining on had no reaction nor sympathy, and thus grabbed the other hand of Daehyun before he could escape. However, his fate was met with a glowing cyan hand tearing open the abdomen from the back, pulling out all the wirings, sparks frizzing everywhere.

Daehyun watched as the last of the humanoid went lifeless and hit the floor with a thud.

The two stared at each other for a brief moment before Youngjae threw his arms around Daehyun, tears began to bubble and pour down his face.

Daehyun immediately reacted and hugged back, the overwhelming feeling of relief causing his flood gates too, to open.

The other three professors walked out of the room to meet the two hugging lovers that were reunited and smiled in relief.

“Oh my god. I’m so glad you’re okay Daehyun… I was so worried. I’m sorry you had to go through all that horrific scene”, Youngjae cried, nestling into Daehyun’s shoulder.

“It’s alright Master. You saved me.”

They pulled back after sharing their short moment of intimacy, the both of them smiling gleefully after being reunited.

Youngjae’s vision suddenly went absolutely blur as he tried to keep his eyes open.

He could hear Daehyun calling out for him, but he couldn’t respond. His breathing was suddenly shallowed as the ringing in his ears amplified. He could now only hear muffled cries of multiple people before he felt his consciousness slip away.