Well, I saw it's title in the comments, and well, I had written half of it, so, present for you?

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“Just trust me.”

Yerin sighed softly and nodded, taking SinB’s hand. They were going somewhere secret, and it wasn’t for a date or a good surprise. SinB had been telling her that there was something rather serious that could potentially jeopardize their lives. If there was a bomb in SinB, and Eunbi wanted to get her hands on it, then it was very dangerous for SinB’s life. Now they were going to see SinB’s father.

“You promised that he won’t do anything bad, and that’s all I really need.”

“Thank you.”

SinB squeezed Yerin’s hand a little, her usual small smile giving Yerin more reassurance. Supposedly, he was just going to pop open SinB’s stomach to see if there really was a physical bomb hidden in her. There could be no other place where the bomb could be hidden if the purpose of it was to erase SinB’s existence. One in the head didn’t remove all the data like one could remove a human’s memories as SinB’s memories weren’t specifically contained there, rather in a cloud on the internet.

She knocked on the door twice. They waited a few moments before SinB knocked again. He knew she was coming; she had promised him. Yerin grabbed the doorknob and pushed, it wasn’t unlocked.

“Why was it unlocked? SinB? Did you remember to tell him when?”

“I agreed on it with him, does he have a guest?”

SinB went inside unhurried, even if there was a guest, he should have opened the door, or told her. She quickly tapped into the internet service around here, checking the locations of several cellphones and matching them to their neighbors. Sowon’s phone was here.

“Yerin unnie.”

Yerin stopped as SinB grabbed on her arm, turning around confused, Yerin blinked as a warm arm wrapped around her shoulders. SinB was in front of her, whoever was holding her, ought to back up. She yelped as SinB pulled her forwards, catching her in a protective hug away from the stranger.

Hands in the air and a slightly amused expression, Hwang Eunbi chuckled.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

Sowon appeared behind her, Yerin could tell she wasn’t feeling too great about everything from the way her eyebrows were furrowed. Something was telling her that Sowon might not be doing what she wants to do.

Ignoring her, SinB looked Eunbi in the eyes.

“Why were you here?”

“Well, wouldn’t you like to know.”

Eunbi pulled out a small black box from her back pocket, it had only one button.

“From now on, you listen to ever word I say.”

SinB eyed the button, if that was the detonator, then she needed it gone. Best case scenario, she could grab it and crush it in her hands, worst case scenario, Eunbi presses the button and everyone nearby would suffer injuries from her explosion. Keeping her face neutral, SinB nodded hesitantly.

This seemed to irk Eunbi even more. The fact that SinB had to think about something, hesitate about something, the way she acted disgusted Eunbi.

“For now, I don’t need you so disappear.”

SinB stepped aside for Eunbi to leave, tugging Yerin with her. Yerin hadn’t moved a single muscle since Eunbi had appeared. Whether out of fear or not, freezing up wasn’t good, SinB just wanted to make sure that Yerin was going to be okay. She watched as Eunbi left, Sowon in tow before ushering Yerin inside her father’s lab.

“Father?”

SinB hurried inside, pulling Yerin along to stick closer to her. There was no response, she worried what Eunbi could have done and why she had the button in the first place.

Finding the office trashed, SinB hurried to the slumped over figure under an opened cabinet. It looked like he had just taken a harsh shove backwards and fainted. Checking his vitals with a scan, SinB frowned and placed him onto the couch before searching around for clues. There must have been something left from Eunbi’s visit.

Shuffling the papers as Yerin silently tended to her father, SinB found only one clue. She smiled.

“Yerin unnie.”

“What is it?”

The paper she found crumpled in the trash can, was the blueprint of her body. It clearly showed where the bomb was, if her father woke up, she could have it removed. Yerin seemed cautious of it, against it even.

“Don’t you think this is too easy?”

“How so?”

“The blueprint just shows you where it is and exactly how to turn it off. If this were a drama, this would be the easiest bomb defusal ever.”

SinB looked back at the blueprint, it was true. In all the dramas she had watched when she was learning about relationships and other things about humans, nothing was ever this easy. Even more so when this was real life. Real life is the hardest of all, at least that was what SinB learned.

“We’ll just have to try.”

Yerin bit her lip, worrying it as she thought.

“What if it’s a trap?”

SinB could only nod, as soon as Yerin brought up the possibility of this paper being a fake or a decoy, her algorithm returned a million paths that Eunbi could have done to cause her death.

“Ugh..”

Her father started to wake up, groaning as he rubbed his head and shouting when he realized that SinB was there in front of him.

“Oh! My god. You’re okay right? Eunbi didn’t run into you on the way here, right?”

“Dad, calm down. You need to tell me what happened.”

He sighed and Yerin sat quietly in the corner, lost in thoughts.

“She came in asking about some detonator and I had no idea what she was talking about. She thought I was playing dumb and roughed me up a little bit, but it’s completely fine. Did…did she find what she wanted?”

SinB stared at him carefully. Taking his hand, she didn’t wink, or blink for that matter.

“You didn’t know there was a bomb installed in me?”

“Are you crazy? Why would I put a…bomb in…my daughter??! SinB! Are you saying there’s a bomb in you?!”

Holding out the blueprint, SinB watched as he scanned over the location and parts that he would need to remove said bomb.  It was as SinB had predicted it, in her stomach area, but the complexity of the blueprint and the way she remembered her insides seemed a bit off. Then again, her memory had been a little bit corrupted from falling into the wa…ter.

“Be careful when checking. It’s possible it isn’t a bomb but something that would cause my shutdown if removed.”

“You’re serious about opening yourself up today?”

“That was my intention coming here.”

Her father looked at Yerin who was still lost in thought in her corner, she seemed sad.

“And she’s okay with it?”

“Yes.”

Ruffling his hair, SinB’s father sighed and got up.

“I’ll get the tools, lay down on the table when you have your shirt off.”

SinB nodded and waited for him to leave. Because he was her father, there was no reason to be embarrassed of being shirtless, besides it was like wearing a bikini, was her logic. But she had other things to attend to, such as talking with Yerin.

“Unnie.”

Yerin blinked, finally dragged out of her thoughts.

“Hm? What is it SinB yah?”

“Do you, want to be in here when he opens me up?”

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, right?”

SinB looked away slightly, Yerin watched carefully as it appeared as if SinB was blushing, maybe it was just her eyes making her see what she wanted to see.

“It might scare you, to see all the things inside.”

“Oh.”

Right, SinB wasn’t human, and had tons of wires and circuits inside her. Yerin did freak out the first time she had seen it. Taking SinB’s hand, she smiled softly.

“Hey, I….love you. That means accepting every bit of you. Even your insides.”

“That’s a nice sentence.”

Yerin blinked. Ouch. But it was to be expected, SinB didn’t quite understand everything thrown at her like a human yet, to have a romantic sentence go over her head was really, nothing special. Chuckling a little Yerin patted SinB’s hand.

“Now, if you could feel embarrassment or shame, I’d leave you alone in here. But since, you don’t mind me looking at everything.”

She wiggled her eyebrows playfully, trying to lighten the modo even if it didn’t get through to SinB.

“I’d be glad to observe.”

SinB oddly felt weird and there was an overheat somewhere in her circuits, not that it would appear on her expression, since they were elsewhere and were not linked to the coloring of her cheeks. Still, she returned Yerin’s smile carefully and squeezed her hand a little. She had read that skinship could help with staying calm.

Tugging off her sweater and shirt, SinB held it out for Yerin to hold.

“Then, I’ll be right back.”

“See ya.”

Yerin hugged SinB’s clothes to her chest as she curled up in her seat, watching as SinB went to the table, laying down on it and tugging at her choker battery. There was a temporary shutdown button installed in her newer batteries and Yerin had to keep herself from feeling sad that SinB was powering off.

“She’ll be back in a jiffy, calm down Yerin.”

Ah, there was one thing that Yerin had noticed. As and advanced AI with self-awareness, SinB didn’t smell at all. Of course, that would be a plus in most of the world’s population who deal with not so nice smelling sweat, but SinB often smelled like fresh linen, even if she didn’t exactly have the need to wash her clothes often, since she didn’t have functional sweat glands.

The sweater and shirt that Yerin had lent to SinB (a little tmi is that SinB seemed to like Yerin dressing her so Yerin did just that) had been washed with the rest of Yerin’s clothes, only, it didn’t smell the same as it did when it came out the wash, her cool breeze detergent scent was gone. Noting to ask about it later, Yerin smiled to herself, seemingly proud that she was thinking positively.

“I found it interesting that SinB grew attached to you.”

Yerin jumped as SinB’s father had returned, a small bag of utilities brought with him. They clanged on the surface of the table as he set his hands gently on SinB’s stomach, feeling where the plating under her artificial skin was put together.

“How so?”

“I mean, you accepting her was like a fifty-fifty chance, you know? Not everyone can wrap their minds around a walking talking android, pretending to be human.”

Pretending to be human. It slightly irked Yerin in some way.

“Ah, well, to say my daughter isn’t human is wrong. I meant it in a way narrowminded people would view it as. I call her my daughter, treat her as my daughter, I’ve been with her consciousness ever since it grew from a child. We didn’t program her as an adult. She developed this way.”

That was news. Yerin had thought that SinB was always this way.

“Here, have a look at my photo album while you wait. I’ll be quick, but I have to be careful after all.”

Yerin quietly took the tablet, opening the album titled SinB. There SinB was, attached to a massive piece of machinery, but a child.

“Was she modeled after Eunbi ever since she was born?”

“No actually, she was modeled after an image. Her mother and I were really invested in our work, but to model after each other would make it unfair. That was the result of a picture of my face combined with her mother’s.”

So, SinB had different faces. It made Yerin slightly happy that SinB had lived with an original face, but when she continued through the images, the teen and adult were both clearly Eunbi.

“When, did she change her face?”

Looking up, Yerin saw that a flap of SinB’s metal plating had been removed, several unknown pieces of machinery along with a clear boxlike structure with many blinking lights attached to wires caught her attention.

“When her mother and I had an argument and Eunbi stopped sending mail.”

He tapped the clear box a few times, unsure of what to do. He didn’t recognize it. He in fact didn’t remember seeing it when he had repaired SinB. It didn’t appear to be an explosive, not a common one anyways, if it were some genius designed mad scientist bomb, neither of them had a clue on what to do with it.

Checking that none of the power lines were damaged or exposed, SinB’s father gently pressed the power on button to let SinB see for herself.

SinB blinked as words flashed across her eyes, warning her of a breach in her protective skin.

“You didn’t patch me up yet?”

“No, I need your opinion on this shiny box.”

“You’re making me concerned when a scientist uses ‘shiny box’ as a description.”

This caused Yerin and her father to laugh. SinB had her default smile, but was clearly confused to why they were laughing.

“I’ll make sure you’re going to be okay, daughter.”

“That would be optimal, yes father."

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is it a bomb? is it? is itttt? wholesome family yes yes now what was Yerin thinking about so deeply?