CHAPTER THREE

Household supply. Just a simple, well not so simple really, household supply. Nothing more, nothing less. That was what I had told myself for over 15 minutes. At least he was wearing clothes now, which calmed me a little. The trousers were slightly too long for him, but the dark grey shirt fitted him perfectly. It would do for the moment until Joonmyeon found something better. Oh right, Joonmyeon.
       I ran into the bedroom and threw on my usual office clothes and fixed my hair as fast as I was capable of. It turned out alright. Then I went out into the bedroom and looked at the (kind of) man again. What is Joonmyeon going to say?
       I took a deep breath, walked up to him with determined steps, and grabbed his shoulders from the front. I pierced his eyes with mine, ignoring the small electrical impulses I felt rushing through my body. Just a household supply. He swallowed.
       “No one,” I said. “can know what you are or why Dr Jung sent you. Especially not my brother. Understood?”
       He nodded slowly.
       “Okay.”
       ”Good.”
       Satisfied with the answer, I moved back and checked the mirror one last time.
       “Joonmyeon will come home first. Do NOT leave the apartment. Just...” I closed my eyes for a second. "Just stay here." I said before walking out through the door. Could this day get crazier than it already was?
       “Um…” the man said before I closed it.
       “What?”
       “Could I like... get a name?” he looked at me from the sofa. He hadn’t moved a single millimetre from where I'd left him.
       “A name?”
       “Yeah.”
       A name? Would you name a household supply? Probably not. But since he was asking…
       “What about Lay? As in Layered Series…” Oh no, so cliché.
       “I love it.” he said and smiled one of THOSE smiles again. Just a household supply.

Arriving to the office, I was again ‘so distant’. But then again, who wouldn’t be freaking out if you just got an android delivered to your house from the world’s weirdest and most excited scientist. Sitting down by my desk, Suzy, my co-worker who had taken care of me since I started at the office, leaned forward and put her hand to the side of and whispered:
       “Hey Jiyoung, did you hear the department manager quit? Apparently the new guy is getting introduced today.”
       “Oh?”
       Finally I wouldn’t be the only new face around the office. It made me a little brighter, and before all, made me take my mind off of the almost man who was in my apartment right now.
       “Yeah, and I heard he is really-” she didn’t finish her sentence, but put her thumb and index finger together so they formed a circle, with the remaining fingers pointing upwards.
       “I get it, I get it,” I mouthed and she giggled.
       “ATTENTION!” the team manager’s voice beamed through the not so big office landscape. Everyone looked up from their computers, and the clicking sounds from fingers hammering keyboards, stopped completely.
       “As you might have heard already,” the leader said and threw a meaning glance at Suzy. “Mr Lee is not among us anymore, which is why we will be welcoming our new department manager, Mr. Oh Sehun, today.” 
       The man next to him bowed and everyone else bowed with him. He looked like one of those movie stars you only saw on TV. But he was so young! Probably about Joonmyeon’s age, and to be placed so high in this big company must have meant he was some kind of genius, or a son of a shareholder. This day probably could get crazier after all.
       “Please take good care of me, everyone.” he said while still bowing.
       And that was that. Team manager said something more and then everyone went back to what they were doing.
       “Told you he seems like a real jackpot.” Suzy dreamily looked over to the office that currently had all the blinds down. “If I hadn’t found the love of my life already, I would totally go for it.” she said and kissed the framed photo of her fiancée that she normally had standing on her desk.
       “Are you crazy?” I whispered. “You can’t just hit on the department manager!”
       “Obviously I’m not. But if I were you…” she nodded towards the office.
       “But now you’re not me.” I cut off her childish fantasies. Sure that department manager was handsome, I couldn’t deny that. But I had no idea who he was. Maybe he was completely nuts, who could actually know? Maybe he had a girlfriend? Just no.
       “Miss Kim!” the team manager yelled from the doorway. I looked up and hurried over there.
       “I have to run to a meeting now, so can you give these really important documents to the department manager, please?”
       I sighed. I had really hoped something like this wouldn’t come up.
       “Of course, team manager,” my default response went on, and the team manager gave me a relieved smile.
       “Thank you!” and then he ran off.
       Three deep breaths.
       As I knocked on the door to the office, Suzy gave me a thumbs up.
       “Come in.” I heard from the inside.
       He was on the phone when I came in. I waved the papers slightly so that he would know what my errand was. He nodded towards a pile on his desk and I quickly went to leave them there.
       “Yes, good bye.” he said and hung up his call.
       There was a moment of silence, and right when I was about to open the door, his voice sounded again.
       “Miss Kim Jiyoung?”
       I immediately turned around and met his eyes.
       “Yes department manager?”
       “You don’t need to call me that on personal basis. Please call me Sehun.” he smiled.
       “Ah, of course. Was there something you wanted to ask?” I asked him. I had to get out of there.
       “May I ask you for how long you’ve been here?”
       “Not long, just a month.”
       “Then I’m not the only confused new one here. That’s relieving.”
       I pointed at the door.
       “I really have to get back to work now…”
       “Of course you do. I’ll see you around then, Jiyoung.”
       It felt so weird when he said my name without the honorific, but I decided to drop the feeling since he was above me in rank after all.
       "You most likely will, Mr Oh.” I said and left the office.
       I quickly ran over to my seat and started up my computer that had gone to sleep mode.
       “How did it go? How was he?” Suzy leaned over her desk almost to the point where she was basically flying above me.
       I thought about our very short conversation.
       “Weird.” was the only thing I said, which left Suzy completely freaking out.
       “WEIRD?! WHAT HAPPENED?!” she yelled. The office landscape went completely quiet again and she apologetically bowed to our co-workers. “Sorry.”
       “Nothing happened. He was just a bit special, that’s all.” I whispered to her, but that didn’t calm her down.
       “How was he special?” she nagged me. “I need to know okay?”
       “I don’t know. He dropped the honorifics almost instantly.” I whispered back.
       Suzy looked like she was going to pass out at any time. She was speechless.
       “D-dr-dropped the honorifics? Just like that?” she managed to get out of .
       “Yeah.”
       “You must have made a damn good first impression then.”
       “I guess I must have..”

When I got home, I must have completely forgotten the morning, so I got a huge shock when I opened the door and Joonmyeon came running towards me.
       “Jiyoung! I passed!” He yelled.
       ”Congrats!” I hugged him. Suddenly he got stiff.
       “By the way, what the hell is that man doing in your apartment?”
       “Wait, what man?” and then I realised. Oh, the household supply.
       “Yeah the weird man that refuses to leave the sofa.”
       “Oh right.” I entered and closed the door. “It’s fine, you can move now.”
       The household supply stood up and walked over to where we stood. I eyed him from head to toe. Joonmyeon had made a good choice with the black trousers and the shirt tucked beneath a v-neck sweater. God, he looked good. I shook the thought off. Just a household supply.
       “Who are you then?” Joonmyeon asked him and pierced him with is gaze.
       “I’m Jiyoung’s…” Lay looked at me, and then back at Joonmyeon. “…new friend.”
 

Over at Night Studios, Dr Min was looking through the transmitted data from their unit.
       “Um, Hoseok, I think I found an abnormality here.”
       Dr Jung rushed through the laboratory to reach the file. When he looked at it, his face turned white.
       “But, that’s not in his program! His software doesn’t allow him to say things like this!”
       “Well apparently he just did. We’ll see how he manages.”
 

“So, Jiyoung’s friend, huh?” Joonmyeon didn’t sound convinced at all.
       “Yup, funny, isn’t it?” I laughed nervously and hoped he wouldn’t notice anything fishy about the household supply.
       “Wait, I know you.” Joonmyeon said and I internally facepalmed myself. “You’re the guy she chose in that test thingy!”
       “How can that possibly be?” I tried to laugh it off, signalling for Lay to follow, but he didn’t seem to understand. This was obviously a lost cause.
       “No, I’m sure of it.” Joonmyeon pointed at Lay. “Dr Jung sent you here!”
       Lay searched for my eyes for guidance.
       “Go on. As much as we agreed.” I confirmed and Lay nodded.
       “You’re right. Dr Jung sent me.”
       “Wow he’s fast.” Joonmyeon sounded impressed. “And he's exactly your style!”
       Lay smiled proudly. I blushed. It wasn’t like that. He was a robot, and he could never be more than that.
       “But you have to pass the boyfriend test before you even get close to that lady, you hear me?” he said to Lay and started dragging him to the kitchen. He took the unpleasant kitchen lamp (I really had to replace it) and directed the light right into Lay’s face, like on those cliché detective movies when they were going to interrogate someone.
       “You have a boyfriend test?” I sceptically asked him.
       “I have been working on it since I was twelve, in case I would have to protect you from nutjobs. This is the way to tell the difference.”
       “Sure it is.”
 

If the case was that Lay was modelled after my test results, he could do nothing but to pass that test. And so he did. He answered each question so perfectly that Joonmyeon had to come up with spontaneous questions in order to make him trip the slightest. But even those he managed to get by perfectly fine. At last Joonmyeon raised his hands in defeat.
       “I give up. The guy is perfect. Go ahead.” he looked completely exhausted.
       Lay smiled.
       “Did I pass the test?” he asked and I nodded, baffled.
       “I think you did.”
       “Does that mean I can stay?”
       ”Wait, he’s going to live HERE?” Joonmyeon frowned. “You just met the guy!”
       “Um…” I started. I hadn’t expected it to be this complicated. It was obvious that Lay could only be either at my apartment or the lab, but Joonmyeon didn’t know that this almost-man in the kitchen actually had no background or human social relations. He only had us and the two doctors at Night Studios. But then again, where would I have him? Did he sleep at all? Did he require something for energy supply? I guess he runs on batteries.
       “Dr Jung said it was better for bonding or something. We both agreed to it in the contract.” Lay said and I sent him a thankful smile. Probably some kind of emergency response if the stubborn brother won’t stop asking questions.
       “Then I have my answers. Go ahead.”
       “I- I guess you can stay.” I wasn’t too sure about this. Damn you, Dr Jung.
       “The sofa is mine!” Joonmyeon exclaimed and disappeared from the kitchen in a flash.
       “Hey! Show some hospitality!”
       Lay laughed. A normal, human laugh.
       “How do you sound so real?” I couldn't help my curiosity. And besides, he probably knew everything about how he was built.
       “Some kind of special voice program.” he answered. “It was developed by Dr Min.”
       So he was the one developing all the cool stuff. Interesting.
       “One more thing,” I said and he nodded. “Do you actually sleep?”
       He thought a while about it.
       “I guess you can’t call it sleeping exactly, but I do recharge.”
       “So you still need somewhere to sleep?”
       “If that’s fine by you.”
       “I guess I have some kind of extra sheet.” I paused. “I suppose the floor is fine?”
       He nodded.
       “That settles it then.”
       I went out into the living room to find those extra sheets in one of all those boxes. I just hadn’t realised they were so many.
       “Let me handle this.” Lay, who had come in after me, said and closed his eyes for a brief second before stating: “They’re in the box closest to the window.”
       So I dug through the box closest to the window, and precisely, there they were.
       “Wow, how did you do that?” Joonmyeon said in awe as his eyes went big as teacups.
       “That’s a secret,” Lay said and winked. Joonmyeon fell backwards on the sofa with a grunt.
       “Too… cheesy…”
       “We got them, so let’s fix a place for you to sleep.” I went into my room and spread the sheets on the floor.
       “Wow, so HE gets a super cuddly sleepover and I don’t?” Joonmyeon yelled from outside and I blushed. Just a household supply. “At least give me earplugs then!”
       “Why would you want earplugs?” I yelled back.
       “Oh, I don’t know, in case you get the greasy idea to talk all night. Or something even worse. Ew.” 
       Now I seriously considered letting Lay sleep in the living room too. Just a household supply. Letting him be with Joonmyeon would make it more difficult for him not to get discovered though. 
       “I’m going to SLEEP, okay? No weird ideas!” I half-yelled, half-sighed. I really sigh too much. Positive thinking.
       “Remember how your answer was 2? Yeah, I can never be sure."
       I looked at Lay. He smiled as usual, and I have no idea if he understood the conversation or if this type of analysis wasn’t really his thing. I decided to ignore it.
       “Good night then, Joonmyeon.” Lay said and went inside to ‘recharge’ or whatever he called it.
       Joonmyeon gasped.
       “He’s not denying it!”
       “He’s not silly like you.”
 

I woke up while hugging something soft.
       “Hey, no matter how much I like it, could- could you please let go? I need to make breakfast.” I heard Lay’s weirdly human voice half-whispered, half-laughed above me.
       I opened my eyes slightly and found my gaze poking right into his shirt. Now I was wide awake and quickly releasing him from my grip.
       “I was going to check how you were sleeping when you made me fall over and then I got stuck…” he started to explain the situation.
       “Um, sorry about that.”
       Then he broke out into one of THOSE smiles again. I suspected Dr Jung was behind that.
       “I don’t mind.”
       “Lucky me,” I yawned and got up.
 

Lay went around like a whirlwind in the kitchen which Joonmyeon just stared.
       “I’m going to get the best breakfast ever.” he said when I finally went in. “Oh, and thank you for the noiseless night. I appreciated it.”
       I sniffed. “Told ya.”
       Perfectly cooked rice, perfectly served side dishes; Joonmyeon was practically drooling by now. 
       “I promise I’m going to move out soon.” he said with his mouth full of food.
       I thought about how things would be if Joonmyeon wasn’t here. Unimaginable. I needed at least someone to protect me from the android in case he would get any weird ideas. 
       “No need to hurry,” I nervously laughed. “Stay for a while, it’s nice.”
       “But I shouldn’t be in the wa-”
       “You’re not in the way of anyone, right Lay?” I sent a gaze to Lay for him to agree, hoping he would get the hint.
       “I agree with Jiyoung,” Lay blinked a few times.
       “There we have it. You can stay for a little while more. On one condition.” I said. I just remembered mom and dad.
       “And what’s that?”
       “That you don’t mention him,” I said and pointed at Lay. “to mom and dad.
       “Understood.” Joonmyeon did a salute and went out to dress up for his first day at the company.
       I was left alone with Lay in the kitchen.
       “So… I have to go to work soon.” I told him, hoping he would understand.
       “Yeah, I figured.” he nodded. “I’ll manage.”
       Relieved, I started cleaning up my plates. 
       “Thank you. I suppose you know where the extra key is.”
       “Located it.” he said and hammered his head with his index finger once.
       So I nodded and went to work.
 

Suzy was still dreamily staring at the office with the still closed blinds, at the end of the office landscape.
       “You sure you’re not going to go for it?” she asked.
       “I’m going to work instead.”
       “I bet he’s rich,” she whispered and I threw my pile of post-it notes at her.
       “It’s not that easy,” I hissed back and she giggled.
       “Of course it’s not going to be easy.”
       My thoughts went to Lay at home. What would an android do by himself? It wasn’t like he could get bored. Maybe do cleaning? I shivered when I thought about how much I would enjoy coming home to a well cleaned apartment after a long day of work.
       “Kim Jiyoung?” someone yelled from the doorway to the corridor.
       “Yes?”
       “You have someone looking for you, should I send him in?” the woman said and I checked my schedule.
       “You can send him in,” I said after I noticed I didn’t have any meetings the following two hours.
       Lay’s face popped up in the doorway and I seriously thought I was going to faint from the shock.
       “You forgot about lunch,” he said and handed me a bag. I supposed he had seen my note to myself about not having time to go out and eat today.
       “Wow, thank you. That’s really nice of you,” I looked down into the paper bag and happily noticed how he’d made an adorable lunch box full of seaweed animals on the rice.
       “Okay, now I understand,” Suzy whispered from the other side of the table.
       Lay looked over at her.
       “Is this your co-worker?” he asked and I nodded.
       “Yeah, this is Suzy.”
       “Hello Suzy,” he bowed and she bent her neck as a greeting. “I’m Lay.”
       “He’s really good looking,” she whispered again.
       “I know,” I mouthed and stood up. “Alright, I need to work now.”
       And, by nothing but some weird impulse, I pecked his cheek and sat down again. And then realised what I had done. Lay looked like he was going to fly out through the window.
       “O-okay… See you at home,” he said and stumbled out from the office.
 

At Night Studios, Dr Jung yelled when he found the transmissions were suddenly going crazy.
       “Oh nonononono, he’s overreacting! The stats are just flying away!” he yelled and called for Dr Min to come down to the lab.
       “It’s fine, he’s just happy,” Dr Min said calmly.
       “But did you ever program for pure euhopria, Yoongi? Did you?”
       “Nope.” 

A/N

Hi everyone, 

I hope you liked the new chapter! It's going to take a little while writing the next one + updating Unexpectations, since I'm at Uni now and I have so much schoolwork hanging over me T__T but please bear with me, I'm coming back as fast as I can!

Stay awesome everyone <3