CHAPTER TWO

Joonmyeon was shaking when we left the building belonging to the strange company that I hadn’t really grasped what services they provided. I shivered when feeling the suddenly so cold midnight air grasping my skin, scratching and biting. As a response I wrapped my already too thin blouse tighter around myself.
       “That went well, I guess…” I said in an attempt to ease Joonmyeon’s mood.
       “Question is, how the hell did you find those people?” he frowned, but didn’t look at me. He sighed, as out of relief that we were finally safe. 
       “Um, random poster on a wall. BUT-” I started but didn’t get to finish my sentence. I prepared myself for living hell. This was the time where the earth beneath me would open up and swallow me whole.
       “WHAT?!” he yelled. “THEN THERE WAS A REAL RISK WITH DOING THIS?!”
       I pressed my lips together into a sharp line and squinted up at him.
        “About that…”
       “I can’t believe this! My kidneys could potentially have been in danger! Like for real!”
       “What about if I'd gone in there myself then? If they can do a better job that mom and dad, then...” My attempts of defending myself were clearly failing because I knew he would never listen to me once he’d started to freak out.
       “Are you really that desperate?” his voice got so cold, I could literally see icicles growing from nowhere.
       I shrunk to half my size.
       “No, I’m not! It’s just that mom and dad..-”
       A third.
       “‘Mom and dad, mom and dad’, when are you going to do what YOU want to do?” he said and pierced me with his eyes, poking right through me with the spikes in his dark pupils.
       A fifth. I had nowhere to do and nothing to answer against that.
       “I-, I don’t know…” A tenth. It had all been for mom and dad. My dear parents that had taken care of us so well, raised us with unimaginable love. And I was doing them a favour, making their hearts well assured that they wouldn’t have to worry about me. They would never have to worry about me.
       “You should try it sometime, it’s quite refreshing actually,” Joonmyeon said and checked his watch to see that it was already almost midnight. It would take him at least three hours to get home from where we were standing at the moment. If public transport was synched that was. “Mind if I crash at your place tonight?”
       “Nope.” I could literally feel myself growing again. But just a little. No matter how much we fought and no matter how annoying (and damn scary) this boy could be, he was my brother. My beloved brother that I had spent almost every day the past 22 years of my life with. 
       “Really?” his eyes widened in surprise. He probably hadn't expected that I would allow him into my house after that. “I really appreciate it.”

On the other hand, we had always been like that. Fighting one moment, best friends the next. 
       “Not as much as me, that apartment is getting really empty.”
       “You’re homesick after only a month?” he smirked. I noticed how much more tired he looked nowadays. The areas beneath his eyes were getting darker. The wrinkle in his forehead (that we in our family called the worry-wrinkle) had grown much deeper.
       “Silly, it’s nice getting away from home,” I laughed, but was hit by the grain of truth in his words.
       “I bet you miss me.” True.
       “I definitely do not.” False.
       “I definitely do not believe you.”
       I sighed.
       “Honestly,” For this one time I would surrender and give up my pride in our relationship. “It’s nice to see you, Myeonnie.”
       With a loud yell, he fistbumped the sky and laughed.
       “I knew it!”
       Then his expression quickly changed from excited, to blank, to soft and warm. I wondered what was rushing through his head at that very moment. A couple of seconds went by until he opened his mouth.
       “It’s… actually quite nice to have you back too, sis.” His smile was so calm. Then he waved as a gesture for me to hurry up so that we would get home anywhere soon.
       We would be okay.

“Woah! So this is where you’ve been hiding!” Joonmyeon exclaimed when he busted the door open and ran, pretty much like a child, to the sofa and basically threw himself over it. I realised how messy my apartment was.
       “Living, not hiding.” I corrected him as I picked up a pile of clothes from the armchair and went into the bedroom to stuff it all away in some corner.
       “Pretty much the same thing when you don’t have me around!” he yelled from the pit, which was what liked to call the sofa. No chance he would get up from there in a while.
       “Well you can sleep where you are, make yourself comfortable,” I yelled back to the living room without giving him a salty answer back. I could hear him get up and sneak to the doorway. (I was pretty impressed that he managed to get up)
       “But what about my super cuddly sleepover?” he said with a childish voice and pouted. In response, I threw a pillow at him and laughed.
       “Since when did you get so clingy?”
       “Since you ran away from home.” he hugged the pillow. “Do you know how scared I get when mom and dad start talking grandchildren? They have already named them all!”
       When considering how mom and dad could be at times, it actually didn’t surprise me at all.
       “Any good ones then?” I said and saw the terror disperse all over his facial expression. “Don’t worry, they won’t pressure us.” Right?
 

The following morning I woke up to the smell of burnt rice and the delightful sound of Joonmyeon sputtering curses around him. I made my way to the kitchen and squinted in the unpleasant light of the kitchen lamp.
       “Note to self: replace that one.” I mumbled and leaned towards the doorway. “How’s it going?”
       With bloodshot eyes and his hair standing up in literally all directions possible, he turned around and grunted.
       “I think your rice cooker is broken.” he said, hoarse from all the cursing.
       “It was perfectly fine yesterday. Did you leave it on for too long?” I asked and started to examine the rice cooker.
       “It said ten minutes so I had it on for ten minutes.” he seemed to take my question as critique toward his cooking skills. “I did it all right! It has to be broken.”
       I opened the lid, and, after all the smoke had passed out through the opening, I immediately understood.
       “Um… No offense, but, did you pour water into it?”
       He froze on the spot and an apologetic smile started to emerge.
       “Um… No?”
       The smile quickly transformed to bubbling laughter and I laughed with him. It was so nice to have some company at last, especially when it was Joonmyeon. Although my perfectly fine rice got burnt.

“Alright, I’m going to the company now,” Joonmyeon yelled while he stepped out through the door and out into the corridor. “Bye sis!”
       “Good luck!” I yelled back with my mouth full of PROPERLY cooked rice, with water and all. Today was kind of a big day, as he would get to know the results from the audition this afternoon. If he got in or not. And I will be going to work in the afternoon. Sigh.
       Not too long after Joonmyeon had left the apartment, there was a knock on the door.
       Did he forget something? I thought and went to open. It wasn’t Joonmyeon who had forgotten something, but a tired-looking man with an insanely big box next to him.
       “Kim Jiyoung?” the man said and scribbled something on the notepad he was holding.
       “Yeah?” I said. All my furniture had arrived weeks earlier, so it couldn’t possibly be a table or something. What the hell?
       “Delivery from a Dr Jung Hoseok… Please sign here.”
       Baffled, I signed the note and the man left. What would he possibly have wanted to deliver that was so big? Or fragile? Why didn’t he call on beforehand, so I would be ready to receive a freaking huge box. Where would I put it?
       Somehow I managed to push the big box into the apartment and close the door. I started to open it by first removing the tape around the box. Inside, there was a huge ball of bubble wrapping, that I carefully dug my way through, until I reached a silver-coloured box. This was getting weirder and weirder. But something in my gut told me I should trust Dr Jung. So I pressed the lid, which made it open automatically.
       I gasped for air.
       If I hadn’t gone through enough creepy things in my life, this definitely took the price.
       Inside the metal case, there was a sleeping man. If he found a match he should’ve just contacted me, not sent him wrapped as a present!
       The scariest thing wasn’t the fact that there was a human in the case though, but that this man looked exactly like the face that I’d chosen on the test when asked for the closest match for my ideal type. EXACTLY THE SAME! Did they have people on storage or what?
       I decided to call Dr Jung to put an end to all the crazy questions that whirled around in my head.
       “Night Studios…-” I heard Dr Min’s voice on the other side.
       “I need to talk to Dr Jung,” I interrupted him and he tiredly told me to wait a little while.
       Ten seconds later, Dr Jung’s voice appeared.
       “Did he arrive safely? I worked all night to get him done as fast as possible!” he almost yelled of excitement.
       “Um, you know, you didn’t have to send him here in a case. You could’ve just given him my number…” I didn’t know where this conversation was heading. To get him done? What?
       “Oh, it’s not like that,” Dr Jung said. “It doesn’t work like that.”
       “Then how DOES it work? What is that man doing in a case and why is he in my apartment?”
       “Thaaaaaaaat needs some detailed explaining,” he started but didn’t seem to want to take the ‘detailed explaining’ at the moment. “You’ll see when you wake him up. He can probably explain by himself. Or at least I think I added that to the software.. Oh well, you’ll know.”
       “Ehm… Okay?” I glanced at the sleeping man. “I understood probably nothing of that.”
       “Just follow the instructions.” Dr Jung said and hung up.
       And I, who was going to get some answers, was left with even more questions than before.
       Now was not the time for going crazy, I was going to ask this man himself.  I dug around in the pile of bubble wrap for these so-called instructions until I found a paper with loads of text on it, so I assumed that was it.
 

To wake The Layered Series unit, place a kiss on its cheek.
 

       Oh hell no. If Joonmyeon would open the door and see me kissing a sleeping man in a metal box case thingy, he would first crap his pants and then for real make my life a living hell. No kissing here. That's a big nope.
       On the other hand, I would be able to ask him what was going on if he was awake. So after a long while of thinking, I decided to do it. I leaned over the flawless face, the high cheekbones, the sharp jaw line, and planted a kiss on the man’s cheek with this really creepy feeling overflowing inside me. The man didn’t move. What had Dr Jung given this guy for him to sleep so hard, and only be awakened with a kiss? Sleeping beauty serum?
       I went into the kitchen to finish my breakfast. My first spoon in, there was a loud crash in the living room. I rushed there and found the man standing in the middle of it, having overturned a pot, looking about as confused as a normal person would do if they woke up in a box in someone's living room.
       “Um, hi.” I said to the man and waved. “Sorry about the box, I didn’t know they would go that far.”
       He looked unknowingly at me.
       “Hello Jiyoung,” he said and did a heart melting smile. His perfectly rounded eyes and plump lips didn’t make it easier for me to process an appropriate response.
       “How do you know my name?” I asked and wondered how much Dr Jung had told him about me.
       “It’s in the core of my program, I’ve always known it.” he said. Now I was really confused. Isn't that like the cheesiest pick-up line ever?
       “Wait, who are you?” Was he a stalker? Dr Jung should totally have made a background check before choosing. Or more like, I should have gotten to know that before choosing his face on the screen.
       “I don’t have a name yet, but I know you customized me.”
       I was speechless. Customized? I was getting a slight idea of what was going on.
       “Wait... Are..- are you human?” was the question that would confirm it all.
       “Not really,” he answered.
       Oh my god.
Dr Jung had either sent me an alien, which was highly unlikely, or an artificial human. A robot. How stupid did he think I was? Robots were for children. You could get them at the toy store. Maybe not human look-alike, but it was the same idea, wasn’t it?
       “Jiyoung, will you go out with me?” he asked, and I was just as speechless as before.
       Go out? Like on a date? What?
       “This is ridiculous, I can’t go out with a robot! That’s the most tragic kind of social life I’ve heard of!” I thought loudly for myself.
       “But I like you,” he said and looked down in disappointment. 
       It’s just a robot! Like a fridge, or a mixer, or an usual household supply. That’s right, he’s like a household supply, not really a human. The thought calmed me down for a bit.
       “I can’t like a robot, I’m sorry I just can’t,” I said to the kinda-not-man and looked at him. That was when I realised he was only in his underwear. If he was going to be in my apartment and my brother was going to be here as well, he would at least wear clothes. Because my brother couldn’t ever know that I had gotten a robot from Dr Jung, which was even sadder than going to the matchmaking agency at 24. I dialled Joonmyeon’s number and after a couple of signals, he picked up.
       “What’s up?” he greeted.
       “Cut the formalities,” I said sarcastically. “Did you bring spare clothes? Fast, I need to know.”
       “Yeah, but those are for tomorr-”
       “Can I borrow them for a teensy tiny bit? Pretty please?”
       “Sure, but if you desperately need clothes, I can buy-”
       “Great! I’ll take these for a short while, so choose something stylish for a guy in his middle 20’s. Thanks!”
       “Wait what-” he started, but I hung up and smiled at the almost-man.
       “Sorted! I’m just going to go find the spare clothes my brother left behind.” I told him and he shone up.
       You know that ache in your heart when you see something beautiful? Yeah, I got that. Household supply. I reminded myself. Nothing more. Just a household supply.

A/N

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