Chanyeol has seen the advertisements everywhere. On websites, on billboards, on TV. He’s even heard radio commercials promoting the little PUPs – short for Pretty Useful Program. A downloadable software that is supposed to make your life a million times easier. Endless possibilities of what PUPs can do, they take the form of a tiny person that hangs out on the desktop of your computer, reminding you of important dates, helping you do research, whatever. Completely interactive and easily programmable, these applications can do anything you want; all you have to do is ask.

According to the internet, it’s the best thing since sliced bread.

Except Chanyeol doesn’t pay any attention to any of the hype. He doesn’t really believe it when people claim that PUPs are better than any regular organizational or planner programs, since Chanyeol’s gotten along just fine with manually typing everything into his phone. He does see the appeal of the hands free part about them though, and he finds himself browsing the website from time to time. More and more of his friends have purchased the programs and every single one of them have already raved to him about their little PUPs, how helpful and adorable they are. And that has Chanyeol’s attention.

It still takes another few days of browsing the website for Chanyeol to finally give in and he creates an account. There are so many different program “personality” options that he doesn’t know which one to choose. He ends up taking the online personality quiz so they can match him up with whichever program settings they think is most compatible with him.

The next step is for him to choose the appearance of the program. For an extra fee, there’s an option to completely customize your PUP (“Have him or her look like your favourite celebrity!”). Chanyeol doesn’t think that he’ll end up using the program for long, so he doesn’t bother completely customizing his, opting to click the randomize button instead (“Guaranteed to create a one-of-a-kind PUP, just for you!”).

After Chanyeol hits the Confirm Purchase button, he checks his inbox and there’s already an email waiting for him. It gives him a link to where he can download his program and twenty minutes later he’s ready to install. He checks all the right boxes, agrees to the terms of service and a loading bar pops up with the progress percentage. It doesn’t take longer than a few minutes for it to reach 100%. Another box pops up on his screen with two options: Run or Exit.

Chanyeol hovers over the Exit button for a moment but eventually he decides to give it a try, see what’s so great about the program that everyone is making a fuss about. Immediately after clicking Run every other program on Chanyeol’s laptop is downsized. His attention is drawn to the middle of the screen where a little door appears. The handle turns, a squeaking sound coming out of the speakers as it opened slowly. A man steps out of the door, looking around curiously and the door disappears when he closes it behind him.

“Hi!” the little man on Chanyeol’s desktop says when his eyes find Chanyeol, smiling brightly and waving excitedly up at him. Chanyeol just stares at him. He’s so adorable with his red hair that falls into his beautiful brown eyes, round cheeks and pale complexion. He looks so realistic. Even his lips look wet and shiny when he swipes his tongue across them. “Chanyeol?”

Chanyeol is startled out of his thoughts at the sound of his own name coming from his laptop computer. “Hi,” is Chanyeol’s belated reply.

The program claps his hands together. “Oh good,” he says. “I was beginning to think there was a problem with your speakers. Or microphone. Thank you for purchasing me!”

Chanyeol definitely feels a little weird talking to his computer like it’s a real person, but he manages to force out an awkward, “Uh, you’re welcome.”

“My name is Suho,” he tells Chanyeol, looking up like he can actually see him. Chanyeol eyes the build-in camera on his laptop. In a way, he supposes Suho can actually see him. “Shall we get started?”

Chanyeol looks back down to where Suho is standing on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. “Get started on what?”

Suho smiles again. It’s way too cute. “On your desktop.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Chanyeol asks, frowning.

“It’s so messy,” Suho says. “I can barely move.” Poor Suho is squished between the shortcuts covering the screen. It’s so crowded that Chanyeol can barely even remember what picture he’s using as his background. “Let me organize this for you.”

“Yeah, okay,” Chanyeol agrees. “How do I fix it?”

“You don’t,” Suho laughs. “I do. Leave everything to me.” He gets to work right away, touching the mess of shortcuts. One by one they disappear, where they go, Chanyeol has no idea. When Suho’s done there are only a few shortcuts left, the ones for the programs that Chanyeol uses the most, stacked neatly along the left side of the screen.

“All done,” Suho chirps after only about a minute of moving the shortcuts around. “This looks a lot better, doesn’t it?” he asks, turning around to take a look at his own handiwork. He’s got a lot more space to move around now too.

“Yeah, it does,” Chanyeol says. He doesn’t remember saving that picture of wolf pups on his computer, let alone setting it as his background. He’ll have to remember to change it later. “Thanks.”

Suho practically beams at him. “You’re welcome!”

Chanyeol promptly forgets about his new purchase when his cell phone rings, his best friend Baekhyun calling to chat for a bit and then he continues the rest of his day as normal. It’s not until he’s about to start getting ready for bed that he hears a voice calling his name.

“Suho?” Chanyeol asks, approaching his laptop with caution.

“What time should I wake you up tomorrow morning?” the little program asks.

“Uh,” Chanyeol answers.

“Oh,” he hears in a smaller voice. “Did you have another alarm that you already have set?”

Normally he uses the alarm on his phone but he already bought the PUP, so he might as well use it. “No, no,” he says, coming around his laptop and poking at the touchpad to get rid of the plain black screensaver. Suho looks disappointed and Chanyeol feels bad because he probably has just been standing there all day, with nothing to do. “I need to be awake for six,” Chanyeol tells him and the smile that Suho flashes him is downright adorable, like he’s so happy to help. If Suho was a real man, Chanyeol might already have a crush on him. “Six AM.”

“Okay, I’ll wake you up at that time then,” Suho says happily.

By the time Chanyeol is finished getting ready for bed, the screensaver is up and running again. He carefully sets up his laptop on the table beside his bed and after quickly shutting off the lights, gets into bed. The blinking lights on his laptop doesn’t keep him awake like he thought it would and it’s not long before he falls asleep.

When he wakes up the next morning, it’s to the soft sound of Suho calling his name. Chanyeol feels like he’s had the best night sleep he’s had in ages and he gets ready for work with an extra little slip in his step.

“Thanks, Suho,” Chanyeol says, still feeling a bit weird about talking to his laptop but Suho easily returns his smile, like a real person would.

“You’re welcome,” he says, waving goodbye. “Have fun at work. And make sure you bring a jacket, it’s supposed to rain later today.”

Chanyeol grins down at the little man on his laptop. “I will,” he promises. He feels bad about closing the laptop and putting it into sleep mode, but he can’t exactly leave his computer running all day. He’ll be back in a few hours to use his computer anyway.



Suho fits into Chanyeol’s life surprisingly easy. Over the next couple of days Suho changes small settings on Chanyeol’s computer that makes it run smoother, and things are easier to find. And the off time when Chanyeol can’t find something that he needs, all he has to do is ask and within seconds Suho has the program loading for him. Suho hangs out in the background when Chanyeol plays games too, instantly looking up tips for him when Chanyeol gets stuck, instead of having to stop and look everything up himself.

Chanyeol had also given Suho access to his email and he automatically deletes the spam. He reads out new emails for Chanyeol and replies for him. And there are a few times when Chanyeol forgets to reply to and Suho has to remind him. “Chanyeol it’s been two days and you still haven’t replied to that email from your mother yet,” Suho says, right before Chanyeol is about to load up League of Legends after a tiring day at work. “That was important, wasn’t it?”

“Oh yeah,” Chanyeol says. His mother wanted to know what was the best night for him to come over for dinner. It’s Chanyeol’s father’s birthday and she made it pretty clear that his attendance was mandatory. “Tell her I can be there for six on Friday.”

“Got it,” Suho says, staring off straight ahead with that dazed look he gets when he’d busy doing something. Not even ten seconds later he looks back up to Chanyeol with a smile. “Done. Good luck with your game.”



Chanyeol rolls over in his bed, opening his eyes for a moment before quickly shutting them again. It’s too early. Five more minutes and then he’ll start getting ready for work. Chanyeol bolts upright in bed, panicking. “Suho, what time is it?” he asks, throwing off the covers and pulling his laptop closer. When he hits the touchpad, a game of solitaire pops up on the screen and Suho’s in the middle of moving the seven of hearts on top of the eight of spades. “Why didn’t you wake me up? I’m going to be late for work!”

Suho turns around and blinks at him. “You were planning on going into the office today?” he asks. “But it’s Saturday...”

Chanyeol hovers the cursor over the time display at the far right of his taskbar. The date, and more specifically, Saturday, pops up after a second. He checks his phone too. Saturday. “Oh. Okay.”

“You have nothing planned for today. I just checked the calendar,” Suho says. He moves a whole stack of cards onto the queen of diamonds. Suho has all four of the aces already collected at the top right of the game window. “Unless there was something you forgot to tell me about?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Go back to sleep then,” Suho suggests and Chanyeol lays back down in bed, pulling the blankets back up to his chin.

“Okay.”

“Sweet dreams,” Chanyeol hears Suho say softly. There’s a bit of soothing humming coming from his speakers and then nothing as Chanyeol drifts back to sleep.



“You have a new email,” Suho informs Chanyeol while he’s busy collecting Cut Grass and Twigs in a new game of Don’t Starve. Chanyeol’s character froze to death in the last game when winter came and he wants to be more prepared this time.

“Who is it from?” Chanyeol asks. It’s getting darker in game and Chanyeol makes sure he’s got the lighter ready for Willow when the sun sets completely.

“It’s from SM Industries,” Suho says. The company that created PUPs. “Oh, it’s just an ad for a sale they’re having on PUP accessories. Junkmail.”

PUP accessories? Chanyeol had completely forgotten about that. Suho’s still in the same, simple clothing he’s been wearing since Chanyeol bought him and that was weeks ago. “What sale? What does it say?”

“Select PUP clothing and accessories are on sale up to forty percent off,” Suho reads. “Do you want to look at it?”

Chanyeol pauses his game right away. “Yeah, bring up the webpage, let me see.”

Suho downsizes the game and brings up Chanyeol’s internet browser, the page already loading. It only takes a second and Chanyeol is amazed at all the different varieties of clothes they came out with. He looks back to Suho, hanging out in the bottom right corner of the screen, and can’t help but think of how plain and boring he’s dressed.

“What do you think?” Chanyeol asks. “Should we get you some new clothes?”

“Oh,” Suho says, and he appears to be thinking it over. “It’s not necessary though. These clothes are fine.”

“But I want to.” He scrolls a bit further down the page of the items on sale. “Look at this cute knit sweater, I bet it’d look great on you. Is there a way for you to try it on?”

“Hold on,” Suho says. He takes control of the page again, scrolling back up to the top, logging in under Chanyeol’s account. He quickly finds the sweater again and now beside the Buy Now and Add to Cart buttons is another one that says, Preview. It only takes a second after Suho hits the button for the shirt to appear on him. He does a little spin on the screen, showing Chanyeol all angles of the white sweater. “How does it look?”

“Perfect,” Chanyeol says, admiring how much cuter his PUP looks now. “Add it to our cart.”

After over an hour of browsing the site, Chanyeol has picked out several hats, a pair of sunglasses, a light brown aviator jacket, some different coloured skinny jeans and even more pairs of shoes. And after another few minutes of debating, Chanyeol decides to get Suho a plain silver ring, just like the one Chanyeol wears on his own hand.

“Couple rings,” Chanyeol explains and he feels a bit silly about it for a second, but the smile Suho flashes him is totally worth it.



The worst day of Chanyeol’s life is when he wakes up one morning to a glitchy Suho. The little program is definitely not running like he should. He stutters when he tries to speak, sometimes with no sound coming out of the speakers at all, and he appears to freeze and then randomly jump across from one end of the monitor to the other.

“What’s wrong?” Chanyeol asks, fretting over the change in Suho’s condition. He should be smiling, telling Chanyeol to get his out of bed or he’ll be late for work (again), but he’s not.

“I-I- d-don’t kn-kno-know,” Suho finally manages to get out.

“What do I do?” he asks, picking up the laptop off his dresser. He cradles it carefully in his arms as if making any sudden movements would cause Suho more harm. The little program tries to speak but only bits of words make it out of the speakers. “What? I don’t understand!”

Suho seems to blink up at him for a moment, then he appears in the middle of the screen. He choppily makes his way over to the Start Menu and when touches the Notepad shortcut it opens the program for him. One by one, letters pop up.

“A virus?” Chanyeol reads. “You’re sick?” Suho looks like he’s about to fall over and Chanyeol wants to tuck him into bed. He wants to make some soup for Suho, even wonders if he has all the ingredients to make a decent meal before he remembers that Suho is nothing more than a program on his computer. Chanyeol’s no tech expert, he usually leaves all the computer-related things for Suho to handle… Which isn’t going to help him now.

Suho nods, a small smile on his lips as more words appear in Notepad. Don’t panic, it says. Too late. Chanyeol’s already panicking. It takes another 30 seconds for the words, run an antivirus program please, to appear on the screen.

“What program!?” Chanyeol asks, frantic. “Do I even have one of those?”

It takes a full minute before the word, Yes, appears on the screen below the rest of Suho’s sentences. One came free when you purchased me. Run that one.

Chanyeol takes a deep breath, tugging his laptop into his lap. He hasn’t really had to manually open any of the programs in months, letting Suho take care of everything for him. Except he doesn’t know where Suho put the shortcut to the antivirus program so he needs to do a search of the computer and find the damn thing first. The virus makes everything on his computer run slower, not just Suho but eventually Chanyeol’s search results show the right program.

Getting the damn thing to load takes five minutes and it’s well over an hour into a scan before it finds the problem. Chanyeol lets it do its thing, removing the infected files and fixing whatever was broken. It requires a reboot and when it restarts, Suho is running smoothly again. “Thank god,” Chanyeol sighs. He doesn’t know what he would do if something had happened to his little PUP; Suho may be just an artificial intelligence program, but he’s made Chanyeol’s life so much better since he decided to buy him.

“I’m okay,” Suho assures him with a smile that’s as bright as ever.

It’s not quite as lonely with Suho around to talk to.



“So what emails do you have for me today? Chanyeol asks over breakfast one Sunday morning. He’s got his laptop resting beside him on the table while he waits for his toast to pop.

“There’s just this one from SM Industries,” Suho replies.

“Oh, are they having another PUP clothing sale?” Chanyeol asks, already getting excited about all the new little outfits he can dress Suho in. The toast pops and Chanyeol tries to get them out of the toaster without burning his fingers.

“No, they just came out with a phone application. It’s free for anyone who has already purchased a PUP.”

“A phone app?”

“Yes.”

“So I can take you everywhere with me?”

“Yes.” Suho repeats but Chanyeol is already out of his seat, heading to his bedroom to grab his phone from where he left it on the bed earlier. By the time Chanyeol gets around to eating his breakfast, it’s cold but he doesn’t care because now he has Suho on his phone and today is officially the Best Day Ever.



Talking to Suho when he’s alone at home is one thing, but talking to Suho on his phone in public is another thing entirely. Even if it just looks like he’s on the phone with someone, Chanyeol still feels weird about talking to Suho with strangers around, regardless of the fact that he sees people doing it all the time.

So on his way home from work, Chanyeol makes sure no one is paying any attention to him before he whispers, “Where’s the nearest Starbucks?” to Suho on his phone. “I need coffee.”

It only takes about thirty seconds for Suho to get back to him with an answer, the music playing through Chanyeol’s headphones lowering as Suho speaks. “There’s one two blocks from your current location,” he says.

“Perfect,” Chanyeol replies. He follows Suho’s directions easily and before he knows it, he’s standing at the entrance to the Starbucks. The heavy scent of coffee invades Chanyeol’s nose as he pushes the door open. It’s heaven. “Thanks, Suho.”

“You’re welcome,” Suho says and before Chanyeol has a chance to ask, he’s already got Chanyeol’s Starbucks app loaded and ready for him to make a purchase.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Chanyeol breathes, smiling and sort of hugging his phone to his chest as he stands in front of the counter.

“I’m sorry?” a voice that’s not coming through Chanyeol’s headphones says.

Startled, Chanyeol shakes his head, pulling his headphones from his ears. “N-nothing,” he replies, horrified that he was caught talking to his phone like a idiot by the barista.

“Are you ready to order?” he asks but Chanyeol is distracted by how familiar this guy looks. He’s short, with black hair that falls into his eyes, smooth pale skin, and–

He looks like Suho. The Starbucks barista, in his black outfit and stained green apron, has a startling resemblance to Chanyeol’s PUP. Joonmyun, his name tag says. Chanyeol just stares.

“Do you want a coffee?” Joonmyun asks but Chanyeol’s distracted with trying to figure out how to ask out the cute guy on the other side of the counter. “A latte? One of our frapps?”

“What?” Chanyeol dumbly replies.

“Your order,” Joonmyun reminds him, looking concerned. He looks so much like Suho when he tilts his head to the side like that. Except Joonmyun looks at least ten times more attractive. Because Joonmyun is a real person while unfortunately Suho is just a computer program.

“Oh,” Chanyeol says, hoping Joonmyun’s first impression of him isn’t as bad as he thinks it is. “Can I have a venti caramel macchiato? With an extra shot of espresso, please.”

“Triple venti caramel macchiato,” Joonmyun repeats, marking the venti cup he picks up and punching Chanyeol’s order into the register. Chanyeol holds out his phone for Joonmyun to scan and thankfully when he glances at the screen, Suho is nowhere to be seen.

Chanyeol tries (and fails) not to stare too much as Joonmyun goes about making the drink and he thanks Joonmyun profusely as he slides the drink across the counter, calling out the drink. Chanyeol pops his headphones back in as he heads over to where the lids are and as discreetly as he can, whispers, “Suho. Oh my god, Suho, you have to save this Starbucks’ location for me. I have to come back here. There’s a barista here that looks almost exactly like you.”

“I’m already on it,” Suho replies. And when Chanyeol looks down at his phone, Suho already has a webpage loaded that has 101 of the most helpful dating tips. Cheeky little thing. “Go get him, tiger.”

And that’s exactly what Chanyeol plans to do.