"He's beautiful… He looks just the same! You must be gifted, dear Kyungsoo."

The young man stretched his lips in a forced smile. He had just finished a doll that looked like a nineteen-year-old who had died a few months before; the result was perfect, but Kyungsoo knew that it wasn't going to be exactly the same as his costumers wanted. "You have to teach him many things." He explained quietly. "You have to tell him how he's going to be called and how he has to call you." The woman nodded, and clapped her hands together. Her eyes were shining and she was smiling widely; next to her, there was her husband, who looked incredibly satisfied with his purchase.

The doll was sitting on the counter, staring at them with blank face. He had nice clothes, he was good-looking; but his empty eyes ruined everything. "The dolls think like a child, but they are more intelligent. If you ask your doll to copy something, he will do it with no imperfections. Dolls can copy everything, so if you'd like him to copy your son's behaviors you can just make him watch a video…" The woman grinned and hugged her doll. "Yes! Yes! Wonderful!" She cupped the doll's flawless cheeks and looked into his dull eyes. "Your name is Tao. Repeat it!" The young 'man' blinked and nodded slowly. "Tao." He murmured. The couple gasped and stared at him with tears now falling on their cheeks and a wide smile on their faces.

"Not only the looks, but also his voice… It's like Tao was never gone." Kyungsoo hummed, not really appreciating the compliments. It was a mystery to him how the dolls had that particularity: they were exactly as the costumers wanted them to be. The married couple walked out of the shop, with still wet cheeks and 'Tao' between them. "Don't you feel happy just by looking at them?" Kyungsoo turned around and glanced at his co-worker, Sehun. He was younger than he was, and still inexperienced: he created dolls, too, but he wasn't as good as the older man.

"I don't." He quickly answered, returning his gaze to the counter. Tao's folder – the real Tao, the dead one – was still there, and Kyungsoo could remember every single line written in those papers. Inside the folder there were his photos, pictures of him and his friends. There was a single one, though, that looked like it didn't belong to the collection: it was a photo of a man, who was sitting on a bench in a park, reading a book. Behind it, there was something written quickly in Chinese. Kyungsoo really wanted to know what it said, but he had decided not to ask anything to the married couple. They probably knew nothing about it.

His job was already hard enough; he had to deal with sad people who wanted to have their dear relatives, friends or lovers back to them. It was stupid, since he knew no one could live twice. However, he was told more than once that he could do miracles, and Kyungsoo, more than once, had thought that it could be true. Sehun had tried more than once, but his dolls couldn't move at all; they were just objects. But every time Kyungsoo finished creating a doll, he was sure that the day after his last creation could talk and walk freely. A doll's look would be clearly hand-made, but his talking dolls seemed humans: their lips were soft and their hair was like silk. At first, he was scared but soon he had learnt that his destiny stayed in the workshop; he couldn't do anything but create dolls.

He hated that. He didn't like his job, he didn't like that his parents were proud of his abilities. He was stuck there, and he couldn't run away.

He was just twenty years old, and a year before he had lost his boyfriend, Jongin, in a car accident. Kyungsoo was devastated, at the time, but never once he had thought of creating a doll for himself. The very first month after Jongin had died was terribly difficult; he couldn't find a reason to wake up and go working anymore. He hardly ate, he just wanted to sleep all day long and think of nothing. Days were dark and meaningless, and only after some time he understood that it was stupid acting like that. Moping around and cry couldn't bring back Jongin to his life.

After his loss, he decided to concentrate on his dolls. He worked hard under Sehun's amazed gaze, as he carefully painted every single detail, every small particular. He spent night in the workshop in order to stop thinking of Jongin and his last tired smile he had given him; even after a long year he knew that he couldn't stop working that much. Sehun, too, had experienced a loss: his dear best friend had died, too, in a car accident, but he had reacted in a different way.

He simply decided to stop talking to his friends and his parents, and only after hearing Kyungsoo's story he changed his mind.

They started a great friendship, and Kyungsoo was always glad to help Sehun in anything. He taught him the techniques of the art of creating dolls, and the young man had quickly learnt every little secret.

However, everything started changing three months after the Huangs had walked out of the shop together with Tao.

It was a cloudy day when Sehun walked into the workshop, where Kyungsoo was working, with wide eyes and a scared look. "What it is?" The older man asked, surprised to see his co-worker that tense and hesitant. Sehun gulped before he started talking; he was terribly nervous. "Mr. Huang is here to discuss about his doll." He slurred. Kyungsoo nodded and Sehun left rather quickly, leaving him alone with their costumer and his doll Tao. "Is there a problem, Mr. Huang?" The man sighed and nodded as he glanced sadly at the doll, which was looking around with a cute smile on his lips.

"You see, my wife and I were very happy with our purchase… However, things got bad after a month." He explained. Kyungsoo frowned; the doll was perfect, that was the first time someone wasn't satisfied with it. "My wife started thinking that the doll is actually our son. She gets worried all the time, and she forgets way too often that the doll can't eat and can't sleep." He sighed again and ruffled his own hair, as he stared at his doll. "She tries to help the doll sleeping, but every time she calls its name to see if it has fallen asleep, Tao answers." The doll looked at the man with a sweet smile and blinked, hearing his name. "Dad?" He said softly with an uncertain smile.

Kyungsoo stood up and walked near the doll. "Do you want to return him?" Mr. Huang nodded and wiped away a tear from his eye. "Keep the money, I don't want them, after all you did really great. But I want to ask something before I'm going away." The younger man nodded and waited for the question. "Why do you refer to them as if they are real people? They are just dolls…" Kyungsoo smiled weakly. "Isn't it what people want to believe? Even you wanted to think that this doll was your real son." The man hummed and bowed deeply. "Thank you for everything you have done to me and to my wife." He whispered with unsteady voice.

"Tao, you are going to stay here, okay? You won't come back home with me. Listen to what Kyungsoo tells you, and behave." He ordered the doll, which nodded hesitantly. "Is this the last time we will see each other?" Mr. Huang nodded and hugged Tao tightly. "Thank you. Goodbye, Tao." The man let go of him and turned around as his doll stared at his back. "Goodbye, dad." The doll whispered with a distant smile.

Sehun glared at Kyungsoo, who was carefully brushing a doll's hair. "I don't want that thing to live here. He's ugly and he stares at us. Look, he's doing it again! That's creepy!" The dark-haired man sighed heavily. "For the last time, Tao is going to stay here and that's final! Tell him to sing if you don't like him staring." Sehun whined and started asking question to Tao. Kyungsoo didn't mind them, but stopped working on the doll when he heard something that made him curious. "There are some photos about a man sitting on a bench in my drawer." Tao murmured. "They were in a folder; it was written that only I could look at the photos, and so I did. There were papers with them, and it was written 'I love you' many times. I saw him at the park, but mom and dad told me I wasn't allowed to talk with him."

Kyungsoo hummed and caressed Tao's hair. It felt real, and for a second he thought he had a person in front of himself instead of a doll. "If you see him, you can talk to him." He mumbled before returning to the other unfinished doll. That night, he had trouble sleeping; he couldn't stop thinking of those photos, and he wanted to know why the real Tao had died. He had nightmares of him screaming and crying, and when he woke up, the doll was next to him. "You were calling me… Why are you crying, Kyungsoo? Did I make you sad?" The young man shook his head and hugged the doll tightly.

Tao's chest was cold, but he found himself calming down and falling asleep as the doll hummed a song and caressed his back, without asking any other questions.

It was after a long month when Sehun entered the workshop with a folder in his hands. "There is another request for a doll." He slowly announced. Kyungsoo looked up and quietly waited for more details. His young co-worker left the folder on a table and stared at his friend. "I want a doll." He continued, as his gaze never faltered. Kyungsoo frowned, not expecting something like that. "Can you give me a photo, then?" Sehun immediately handed him one, but with just a glance, the older man felt like blacking out.

A smiling boy stood there, with his arm wrapped around Sehun's shoulders; they were happy, but it wasn't that the real problem. "Is this a joke? Because it's not fun." He finally said after a long minute. "What? Of course it isn't. I want the doll to be like my deceased friend Jongin." Kyungsoo had to sit on a chair nearby in order not to fall on the ground. His eyes were wide; he had lost any color from his face. He looked like he wanted to die or to hide himself for the rest of his dull life. "Sehun." He began to talk. His heart was pounding in his ears, and the first tears clouded his sight. "Sehun, Jongin was my boyfriend. H-how…" His co-worker stared at him and did nothing. He didn't seem surprised, it was as if he was expecting his reaction.

"I know." He whispered. "But you have moved on, am I right?" Kyungsoo gasped as he heard those words. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "W-why do you want a doll?" He sobbed. Sehun smiled softly, as if his friend's tears did nothing to him. "Kyungsoo, my turn has arrived. I want Jongin for myself. But you have moved on, am I right?" He repeated with a smirk. There was no way the older man was going to admit it; Sehun had won. "Of c-course I've moved on. I don't think of J-Jongin anymore." Kyungsoo stuttered. "I just didn't expect you to request for a doll that looks like him."

Sehun chuckled and hugged him tightly. "I knew I could ask for your help!" He grinned. Kyungsoo smiled back, but it felt like his heart was being smashed and crashed thousand times.

He didn't think that his lie was going to hurt both him and Sehun.

He realized his mistake three weeks later, when the doll was completed.

A/N:
Wow, already 8 subscribers! Thank you, everyone! ^^
Okay, this is going to be a short fic, I think next chapter will be the last one.
I'm sorry if you find some mistakes, English isn't my first language ^O^;;

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Until next time!