"Okay, try now," he directed, his fingers placed under Minseok's chin so the robot was looking him in the eyes.

There was a thick feeling in the air, one filled with both hope and nerves as he opened his mechanical jaw, took a breath in, and tried to form a word, a word that Jongdae suspected (and maybe hoped) was going to be his name.

But for what felt like the millionth time already, as hard as he tried, he just couldn't do it. He couldn't force a sound out.

He gave Jongdae a sad look, helplessly shaking his head, and the mechanic sighed deeply. This was much more complicated than he really could have expected. In fact, it was kind of what he was afraid of.

It had been five days since he'd first found out that Minseok had lost his voice.

And it wasn't from getting too excited at a football game or getting a really bad cough. Jongdae couldn't just tell him to drink lots of water and hope for the best. He wished it was that simple, but this was one of the few ways that machines were less simple to him than humans.

By that point, he had to admit he was missing the robot's voice, as cheesy as that may seem. Jongdae always used to think he was that one single person who wasn't bullting when he said he liked the silence better than hearing other voices, but it was starting to look like he was just as wrong as everyone else.

After all these years, he finally longed to hear a voice instead of being afraid to. He wished for love instead of pushing it away.

"Alright," he said softly. "I think I've tried enough for tonight. I'm sorry, Minseok."

The robot only gave him a simple nod of understanding, and once again, they went to make their way upstairs for the night. In all likelihood, it was either sometime around or well past midnight; Jongdae hadn't realized how late in the day it had been when they'd come down to the basement, nor did he realize how much time they'd spent there, but the crescent moon was now perched high in the sky.

"Are you going to get some rest?" he asked gently when they reached the living room. That was the other thing that was eating at him; on top of the issue with speaking, the robot had seemed fatigued in a way that Jongdae didn't realize was possible for a machine.

It was like some greater force was twisting things in his life around, trying to test how easy it was to slice him into two pieces like a vegetable. Coincidentally, Jongdae was starting to feel a considerable bit like a halved onion. He felt as useful as one in this situation, anyway.

Minseok nodded at him again for the umpteenth time that day, looking tired and expressionless as he walked over to lay himself down on the couch and get comfortable.

Jongdae just stared at him wistfully as he shut his eyelids, wishing that he could do something to fix this.

For once in his life, he wanted to have control, to know what he was doing, to show somebody (even a robot) that he could protect them.

And although that's what Minseok was - a robot, that is - Jongdae cared about him as if he were the most compassionate, down-to-earth person alive, as if there were a red heart beating against the metal in his chest.

Alright, easy there, Shakespeare. No need to get all deep about this right now.

Soon enough, the soft sounds of steady breathing whispered through the room as he stood there next to the couch, and he knew without having to glance at the slightly parted lips and peacefully curled up body (although, obviously, he did anyways) that Minseok was asleep.

Now, usually, the time Minseok cashed out for the night was only minutes before he went to bed himself. Being kind of whipped even though he was the actual homosapien in this relationship, he usually wasn't quite sure what to do when the robot wasn't up and about.

Although, granted, he often spent a good deal of time just laying in bed before he fell asleep, staring at the ceiling in thought like the over-contemplative guy he was.

Regardless, tonight was going to be different. Or at least, he wanted it to be.

With everything he'd accomplished so far, all of progress he'd built on top of Luhan's since the beginning, it was kind of silly for something like this to be making things so difficult for him.

And so quietly, he rotated himself on the floorboards, hoping that they wouldn't squeak as he tiptoed towards the door back to the basement. As things were, he had a mission to complete.

Conveniently enough, he'd just recently started to write down things he thought were good to remember in this empty notebook that he'd found in the basement; the corner of it had been poking out from underneath one of the desks displaying abandoned projects of Luhan's, and Jongdae thought it could be pretty useful to him.

For writing important notes or spilling his feelings onto an 8.5 by 11 inch piece of paper like a lovesick teenage girl, he hadn't been quite sure yet, but he knew it'd come in handy either way.

The notebook was currently laid down on the table by his tools, (he'd been glancing at a few things he'd jotted down when he was continuing his search for Minseok's voice) and he grabbed it, taking a quick look around the room for someplace to sit down.

But then, he remembered that today, the weather had actually been very nice. Especially compared to how it had been recently. Did he really want to coop himself up in here? It was already a shame that they'd spent all their daylight inside.

Acting on another unusual impulse, he turned back to the stairs, and up he went, making sure to step as lightly as possible when he was near Minseok again and grabbing his pencil off of the floor where he'd dropped it earlier (the robot had grabbed his shoulders to get his attention, and it had gone flying out of his hands as he squealed like a four-year-old girl. Definitely not one of his finest moments, he had to say).

Cool yet still unusually warm air greeted him with open arms as he stepped outside the cabin, and he embraced it, breathing it in as he took a seat, crossed his legs comfortably and set his notebook down in his lap.

It wasn't the easiest thing ever to see properly out there, his only light being the light of the moon, but he couldn't really complain. Ever since he was a little kid, he'd always loved to look up and see the moon above him, all those miles away. As cliché as it was, seeing that glow in the sky and knowing that thousands of other people could look up and see the same moon made him feel less alone.

He turned to a random empty page, gripping tight to his pencil to help keep him awake and focused.

Alright, what questions have I asked him so far?

He went back through the past couple of days in his head thoughtfully, eyes watering a bit as a nipping wind blew directly into his face. A small hiss of discomfort escaped him, and he used his heels to clumsily scoot around so he was facing the other way.

Okay. Better.

He blinked, pressing the tip of his pencil to the paper.

Wait...what was I gonna write again?

He sighed, tapping his eraser on the page in irritation. This whole thing was going to drive him crazy. Especially because he'd been feeling emotionally and physically gross these past couple of days (he hoped he wasn't getting sick; that'd just make everything worse) but mainly because he didn't have the slightest idea what had caused this voice problem.

Despite everything, though, he definitely couldn't say he minded the robot taking hold of his hands whenever he wanted his attention. That was pretty much the only upside to this; it was so cute, it made Jongdae's heart feel like it might burst every time.

Dammit, Jongdae. Snap out of it. Thinking about this stuff isn't gonna do you any good right now.

Not that it would any other time, but especially not now.

Mindlessly, he scrawled down a heading for a section of the note page, just wanting to get something on the irritatingly empty paper, and he had to stare at it for a stupidly long time to realize exactly what he'd wrote.

Stuff

He snorted, rolling his eyes at his own lack of focus and rubbing over his handwriting with what was left of the pitiful pink eraser.

With his luck, however, it seemed he'd picked the pencil with probably the tiest eraser he'd ever come across, and he ended up writing (and going over, so it was bold enough to be legible) his new heading over the barely faded previous one.

Questions

Alright. Now he just had to remember the questions he'd asked him within the past five days.

His jaw dropped open in a sudden wide yawn, one that made his eyes water again, and he covered his mouth even though no one was there to look at his yawning face - which mind you, was horrendous enough to make a grown man cry. Then, with eyelids hanging low over his pupils, he smacked his lips tiredly as he realized something.

. He forgot what he was thinking about again.

It was something about Minseok...

Well, no .

And then, miraculously, it came back to him, and he forced himself to jolt into action, quickly doodling a bullet point underneath his new heading before he forgot.

Right. Questions. Ones he'd asked Minseok.

And then something else hit him.

Wait. I'm a . I could've just looked at the goddamn heading.

Oh well.

In any case, now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure he'd asked about the robot feeling different or something; his throat, and whatnot.

That was as much news to him as the fact that Minseok couldn't speak in the first place, but hey. Baby steps.

Hopefully, it wouldn't be long before he found the solution to this strangely arbitrary problem. After he got used to hearing it, he had really come to love Minseok's voice; it had only the slightest robotic edge to it, and it was surprisingly gentle most of the time. Jongdae often found it comforting, especially at times when stressful, self-deprecating thoughts were running wildly through his head.

Like right now, for example.

He briefly wondered if the human Minseok's voice had sounded the same, but soon banished the thought, reminding himself that he'd come to the conclusion that robot Minseok was the Minseok he loved; his intelligence paired with cute, childlike innocence, his strength paired with obliviousness.

Goddamn it.

It was like no matter what he did, he couldn't stop his thoughts from eventually drifting back to bitter, angry things that made him want to break something or awful, cheesy things that made him want to gag himself.

You always were afraid of humans. Figures you'd catch feelings for a robot.

Finally, he decided to just take a break for a few minutes. If he could just lay there and let his thoughts run wild for a little while, maybe he could get them all out of his head so he could focus on the issue at hand.

Turns out he'd underestimated how tired he actually was; the moment he tossed his notebook aside and let his head rest back on the ground, his vision faded out to black as his eyelids fell shut.

Mindlessly, he listened to the night sounds surrounding him, curling up to help tame the goosebumps on his skin caused by the chilly wind. It was starting to seem like the cold weather would come back, and he absently mourned the warmth and sunshine that him and Minseok had missed the previous day.

One day, he hoped that he could spend time with Minseok outside when it was warm and springlike. Maybe, if he'd put in enough work by then, they could have fun together. Maybe they'd chase after each other in the woods, almost become lost but get saved by Minseok's gps system or something cute and mushy like that. It made his conscious sound like a motivational speaker, but he wondered if maybe, anything was possible.

Maybe.

Slowly, these thoughts were once again replacing those of protest and lulling him towards the favorable option of sleep before he even realized it, and he really would have drifted off if it weren't for the loud creaking noise that rang out from inside the cabin.

Jolted back awake, Jongdae sat up, his head snapping to face the door on instinct. His muscles tensed up as he stared at it, wishing that he could see through it without having to open it.

Had Minseok gotten up?

If he had, something was definitely up; in all the time Jongdae had lived with him, he'd never woken up in the middle of the night. Not even once. At least, not that he knew of.

For a while, he stayed right there in his spot on the ground, frowning and listening intently for any other possible noise, but as the seconds ticked on and on, he could only hear the wind whispering against his ears.

Maybe he'd imagined it.

Or maybe Minseok had gotten up, but then just laid back down and gone back to sleep. Maybe he had gotten up and was now just standing there in the middle of the cabin like a lost puppy, unsure of what to do or where to go.

Or maybe, the sound wasn't Minseok at all. Maybe Jongdae should've been afraid.

In the end, it didn't really matter, because in the blink of an eye, he felt the little consciousness he had left slipping into nothing, his muscles simultaneously twitching in shock before relaxing, becoming still.

In his last waking moments, he attributed it to the wet, almost sweet-smelling cloth in the bony hand that clamped over his mouth.

---

this was kinda trash but I hope you liked it sdkufsduhsdfh

See you soon! c: