Yixing didn’t know what he expected to see when he opened the door, but it wasn’t it. Jongdae was standing or more like crouching as he was tying his shoes. He froze when he saw Yixing. In a few short seconds he clung to Yixing hugging him so tightly Yixing begun worrying his titanium back would snap in half. The hug was so out of nowhere that Yixing didn’t even hug back; he stood there while Jongdae snuggled his face between Yixing’s shoulder and neck.

“Where have you been?” came Jongdae’s muffled voice.

 “I was at Mr. Kim’s. I told you,” replied Yixing with a curious tone.

Was Jongdae worried he had run away? That was stupid. An android without his creator never lasted long. Even if he wanted to run away (which he didn’t) he wouldn’t last without having frequent repairs and sensors checked. The more complicated androids were the more attention they needed. Jongdae should have known it.

“No, you didn’t. I was worried sick for you!” Jongdae snuggled his head further into Yixing’s shoulder.

He was worried. Worried for him.

He felt as if the breath was knocked out of his mechanical lungs. No human had ever worried for him. Well, Doctor Kim was always attentive to him, but he was his creation so of course he would. Jongdae was different.

 “You were worried for me?” asked Yixing in astonishment.

Jongdae pushed himself off Yixing just enough to look at his face while saying;

“Of course I was, you idiot. You just disappeared and I had no clue where you could be. I even wanted to come looking for you.”

Jongdae, the person who hadn’t left his room for months, decided to leave the house just to find him. Yixing was speechless for a few seconds; he just stared at Jongdae with his mouth slightly open. Then as if coming to his senses he said calmly;

“You had no reason to be worried. I can manage myself. I’m an android after all.”

For some reason Jongdae furrowed his brows.

“Yes, you are an android but that doesn’t mean that you are safe from harm. There are many people who kidnap and sell androids especially the emotive ones. Please be more careful.”

Yixing nodded curtly not quite processing the whole situation. But then a realization came to him.

“So you were worried that people would steal me?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I’m sure Doctor Kim would make a new one in case I went missing, so you had nothing to worry about,” said Yixing in his most nonchalant tone.

Jongdae gasped without a sound. The he looked as if Yixing had offended his entire family tree.  

“How could you say that! Just because you don’t have blood running through your veins doesn’t mean you aren’t worth anything. Uncle Minseok spent months working on you; you are his best creation. Do you even know how proud he is of having created you? Do you know how much he cherishes you? You have a mind, a personality and emotions, even if they are artificially created and not as complex as human’s ones, they are still important. You can’t just neglect yourself. You aren’t that easily replaced as you think you are.”

“What about you?”

“About me?”

“Do you cherish me also?”

The look on Jongdae’s face was a sign he shouldn’t have really asked that, but he couldn’t help himself. He was a simple copy of the person Jongdae loved. No matter what he did he would never be as good as the original one.

Jongdae lowered his head. Slowly he took a hold of Yixing’s wrist and dragged him to his bedroom.

xxx

None said a word. They were just sitting on Jongdae’s bed; both thinking about the same question from different perspectives. Suddenly Jongdae left the room but shortly came back with the photo album in his hands. He sat on his previous place – on Yixing’s left side and begun flipping the photo album.

Yixing turned his head to look at it too. He had seen those photos before - on his first day at Jongdae’s house. This time wasn’t different. He still felt a numb kind of a pain when looking at the photos, but this time he also noticed something he never noticed before.

“Why doesn’t Yixing have photos of his own?”

There were over 30 photos in that album and in none Yixing was alone. He was usually with Jongdae, on some he was with Doctor Kim, in the others he was with the rest, and some where of just Jongdae, but never Yixing alone.

“He didn’t like taking photos of himself. He enjoyed taking photos of everything around himself – the city, the people in it, our family and me, but he never took his own photo. He hated seeing himself alone in the frame. Photos for him were the reflection of the world he lived in, so he hated seeing himself alone in them. He hated seeing himself all alone in this world. He was terrified of it.”

They went silent after that. The atmosphere was gloomy.

After the silence, Yixing asked a question he had on his mind all the way from Mr. Kim’s house.

“Was he happy? In the end?”

His own voice sounded weird to him at that moment. The words itself were weird; too heavy too terrifying.

Jongdae looked at him with a thoughtful expression.

“I hope he was,” Jongdae’s voice had never sounded so unsure, so soft.

His grip on the album tightened. Yixing noticed that and put his hands on Jongdae’s. They were very cold. Jongdae had lowered his head again, but when he felt Yixing touching him, he didn’t pull away. After some time, Yixing took the album from Jongdae’s hands and put it on the bedside table. He made Jongdae lay down. When he turned around to leave the room, a hand grabbed his wrist.

“Please stay.”

The voice was pleading. Yixing lay down next to him. He turned his head to look at Jongdae, but Jongdae was already looking right back at him. There were only a few inches apart; Yixing lying on his back and Jongdae on his side. Yixing just stared back at Jongdae. There was something in Jongdae’s look. He couldn’t keep his eyes off him. He was too beautiful. Before Yixing could realize anything, Jongdae tilted his head and closed the  small distance between them. The kiss was a simple touch of lips on lips, but it felt as if his whole body was on fire. Yixing still had his eyes wide open when Jongdae broke the kiss. He still lay close to Yixing with their noses touching. Yixing spent the whole night just looking at Jongdae.