“I found thirteen profiles that matched yours while you were at work.”

Taemin undoes his tie as he listens to one of his AI assistants, Eve, broadcast its unnecessary findings to him on the speakers installed around his apartment. 

“I found fifteen,” Adam, his other AI assistant goes, “I isolated two more by your workout schedule.”

“Workout schedule?” Taemin raised a brow as he dropped his dirty clothes into the dry-cleaning chute. He pulled on a hoodie over his shorts and waded out towards the kitchen where Eve had already begun heating his takeout in the microwave.

“You could go on gym dates!”

Eve’s robotic voice deadpanned, “Highly improbable since we have scheduled a cancellation request for his new gym membership.”

“Although you signed up at the gym accidentally while browsing the internet, I suggest you reconsider going, Taemin. Gym dates were popular in the past. A recent article cited it as one of the best couple activities—"

“Okay, stop it both of you.” Taemin pulled out his food from the microwave, “I am not interested in dating anyone at the moment. Especially not at some old gym.”

“Perhaps not at a gym, but you are interested in dating a person.” Eve switched on the TV for Taemin when the sensors picked up the direction of his footsteps.

“What brought you to that conclusion?”

“We recorded spikes of envy when you witness your friends talking about their significant other—”

“And irritation when you scroll through your exes’ social media profiles.”

“Oh my god.” Taemin let out an exasperated sigh. “I granted you guys the permission to record my sentiment stats only to manage my stress and not for such reasons.”

“Every emotion you feel affects your stress levels, Taemin.”

“Okay, that makes sense, but deliberately finding someone to like doesn’t make sense at all.”

“The fact that dating sites exist is an indication that it makes sense to the majority of the world’s population.”

“What makes sense to you, Taemin?” It was Adam who asked, cutting short the argument Taemin was about to come up with.

Taemin hummed in thought, “Ending up liking someone you find.” He paused and added, “Meet.”

“If the criterion is someone you have met,” Eve began, “Will you consider dating them?”

“Yes, but, obviously, not every person I meet.”

“What if they are also someone you have had feelings for?”

Taemin furrowed his brows, “If I have had feelings for someone, I must have obviously acted on them?”

“While monitoring your sentiments, we recorded multiple instances when you did not act on your feelings.”

“Multiple?” Taemin was now intrigued, “Project and elaborate.”

The TV screen changed to a screen filled with analytical data on his emotions from the past three years. Although he had bought Adam and Eve about five years ago, it was only three years ago that he had granted them consent to monitor his sentiments.

“During the last three years,” Eve began explaining and the data transformed animatedly and focused on the related sections as it spoke, “We have recorded certain bursts of emotions at various occasions—”

“Eleven occasions—”

“And you have acted on these bursts of emotions only three times, which led to your three relationships, the last of which ended over a year ago.”

“The last piece of information was unnecessary but okay.” Taemin finished up his food and slumped back on the sofa, “So these bursts in emotions are…?”

“In layman’s terms, your crushes.”

“Interesting,” Taemin commented thoughtfully, “What are the criteria you used to isolate these, um, crushes?”

“A spike in your heart rate. The change in your voice tone and your conversation skills. Spikes in your happiness and various other sub-emotions that have been classified as admiration, adoration, surprise, excitement, shyness, confusion, ual desire—”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Taemin sat up, “Eleven instances? Does that mean eleven people?”

“Yes. These are people who you have had a momentary crush on in the past three years.”

“Wow, you even captured a snap of them through my smart glasses.” Taemin watched the slides of the instances that were filling up the screen now. Eve had rearranged the information in the form of profiles. A picture and publicly discoverable information on the person along with Taemin’s emotional analytical data related to each of them. “Begin slideshow.”

As he went through the slideshow, Taemin seemed to remember every one of them, even if it was vaguely, or through a detail listed in the information recorded. But there was one that he couldn’t place at all. The face wasn’t familiar, Taemin couldn’t recall a vague memory of interacting with this person, nor did any of the information his assistants had recorded or pulled from the web seem to ring a bell.

“When it comes to physical appearance, he is the most aligned to your preferences among all of the instances,” Adam commented because of Taemin’s extended attention on this one slide.

“A simple comparison,” Eve rearranged the screen and now there were profiles of his exes placed beside that slide, “Confirms that he is the most aligned among your past partners as well.”

“He… is.” Taemin couldn’t deny it. But what had him still baffled was the fact that he didn’t remember such a handsome guy despite crushing on him. And going by the time stamp, he had met this guy just a few months ago.

“If you permit it, I can run a connectivity algorithm.” Adam offered.

Taemin bit his lip in thought, “Fine, do it.”

The results of the algorithm began appearing on the TV screen and Taemin cussed under his breath.

“Currently, you have only one common aspect with Choi Minho,” Adam reported, “He is the owner of the gym you have a membership of.”

“Would you still prefer to cancel your gym membership?” Eve asked and Taemin knew it had asked that because his emotions were still being monitored and recorded.

“No, withdraw the cancellation.” Taemin gestured to switch his TV back to normal, “And… book a slot for 6 PM.”

Taemin