“Hold on for a sec.” Baro tugged at my hand. We stopped and I looked at him questioningly, although I was still chewing my lower lip and I couldn’t focus on him because I kept looking around for Jinyoung. “Look at me.” He put both hands on the either side of my face, making me look straight at him. “Look at me, and take a deep breath.”

I did what he said.

“Do it again.”

I started to pull away. “Baro, we don’t have time for this—“

He held me fast. “Again.”

I rolled my eyes and took another deep breath. Amazingly, it helped. The heavy suffocating feeling in my chest lessened.

“We’ll find Jinyoung,” he told me calmly. “He always gets lost, but you always find him in the end. We’ll find him, so don’t panic, okay?”

I looked at him, and he stared back at me. His gaze was calm, clear and sure, and it was his certainty that calmed me completely. I nodded and smiled when he let go of my face. I was a lot calmer now, and I could think straight. Freaking out wouldn’t help me in this situation. I needed to clear my head. I had to find Jinyoung.

But how?

Jinyoung likes cute things. He’s always been strangely attracted to small trinkets, figurines and toys, anything that was cute.  Also, when he gets fascinated with something, he had a tendency to focus on that thing, almost forgetting about everything else.

“We should check toy stores,” I told Baro. “Any store that sells cute things. Jinyoung likes cute things.”

“See?” Baro grinned. “You think well when you’re calm.”

I was glad that Baro went with me. If it was Sandeul, he’d probably be even more freaked out that I was. It seems that Sandeul is the one that responds most to whatever I feel. Gongchan would probably be a good search partner too, since he has good senses, but he gets distracted quickly. And Shinwoo…If I had Shinwoo we would probably spend more time speculating that doing the actual search.

“I know, thank you.” I held his hand and squeezed. “Now stay close to me, all right? I don’t want to lose you too, or I might actually die of a heart attack.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

I thought of all the places we passed earlier, trying to remember if there was any store that could hold Jinyoung’s attention. We ended up checking all stores as we traced the paths we took earlier. We mostly checked shops that sold toys, trinkets, and other things that could hold Jinyoung’s attention.

Our one hour was almost up, but we still haven’t found him. Baro suggested that we meet up with the others, maybe they’ve already found Jinyoung. I decided to check just one more shop, a little vintage store that sold music boxes, accessories and little porcelain figurines. Baro and I separated, checking aisle after aisle. There was still no sign of Jinyoung, and I was actually near tears by the time we went out. Baro put an arm around me, squeezing my shoulder in an attempt to comfort me.

“Maybe the others have him already.”

“But what if they don’t? It’s my fault, I should have—“

“Mi Ra!”

I saw Jinyoung across the street, jumping up and down, waving at me. My first impulse was to yell at him. To throw something at him, because he scared me so much by disappearing like that. But I was so relieved and happy to see him that I just ran and hugged him tightly. I was hugging him so hard my arms hurt, but I didn’t care.

“Where’d you go off to?” I snapped, tearing up as I looked at his face. “Why’d you disappear like that? You know you always get lost. I told you to stay close, didn’t I?”

He hugged me back. “I’m sorry, Mi Ra. I saw a cute music box so I stopped to look at it, and when I turned, you were gone. I wanted to look for you too, but I thought I might end up getting even more lost if I did that, so I stayed here. Also, I remembered what you told me. That if I get myself lost I should just stay put, because you’ll come back to find me. So I stayed at the toy store we went into….but it looks different now…”

I had to laugh. I smacked his head gently. “Of course it does. The toy store you’re talking about is on the opposite street,” I told him, pointing at where Baro and I came from. Baro had crossed the street too, and was rolling his eyes at Jinyoung.

“Really? So that’s why…But how did I end up here?”

I laughed again, burying my head in his chest. I was still hugging him.

“All right, we found Jinyoung. Yay. What a happy event,” Baro commented, his voice a total deadpan. He stepped in between me and Jinyoung, pulling us apart. He wore a bored expression. “You two can stop hugging now. Let’s go meet up with the others.”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

“She must be really tired,” Sandeul said as they looked down at Mi Ra’s sleeping form. It was already late afternoon when they got back. Mi Ra wanted to head straight to bed but they all managed to convince her to eat something before sleeping.

“I guess she was really worried about me,” Jinyoung said. “I’m sorry, Mi Ra.”

“She really does care, doesn’t she?” Shinwoo mused. “She looked like she was about to cry when she found out you were gone, Jinyoung.”

“Let’s go downstairs so she can sleep properly,” Gongchan suggested.

One by one they started to leave, until Baro was the only one left. He just stood beside Mi Ra’s bed with both hands in his pockets, smiling down at her. It was sweet of her to be that worried about one of them getting lost. He didn’t expect that she would panic so much, to the point that she would actually be in tears.

“We’re just machines,” he told her softly. “We’re just robots. Why do you care so much about us? Why does it matter if one of us got lost?” He knelt so he could see her better. He stared at her face for a moment longer, lightly the side of her face with a finger. After a moment, he dropped a whisper-light kiss on her cheek. There it was again, that weird warmth in his chest. Was there something wrong in his mechanism?

“Good night, Mi Ra,” he whispered, ignoring the weird “something” in his chest. “Sleep well.”

He walked out, gently closing the door behind him. Baro leaned against it. That warm thing seemed to appear more often these past few days. It happened earlier too, on the bus, when he saw Jinyoung holding Mi Ra’s hand, and again when Mi Ra hugged Jinyoung a moment too long. Except..it was different. The latter one was almost…painful. But then he knew better. It couldn’t have been pain, simply because he didn’t have emotions. He’s a robot, after all.

But still…

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

I can't write the story with them being "emotion-less" so I decided to give them hearts! 

*strange terms, strange words*

But....how will they earn those hearts?