‘Janet! Janet! Get your together! What’s wrong with you today?’ The manager shouted.

‘I’m sorry.’ Janet apologized and snapped out of her chain of negative thoughts. The line at the counter was long and customers were hunger & impatient. Her entire day at work was crazily chaotic; she screwed up so many orders, her mind kept wandering off to different places; places where she & Junhong had been. She was so caught up in her own thoughts that she walked passed Junhong at the subway entrance not realizing he was once again acting on his own, waiting for her to go home together after work.

‘Janet’ Junhong pulled her arm to get her attention ‘What’s wrong?’

‘What?’ Janet turned around, shocked to see Junhong standing next to her ‘Why are you here?’

‘It’s late; I’m worried about your safety.’ Junhong looked down on his feet, apologetically ‘You angry with me?’

‘No.’ Janet stopped; her heart was beating faster and faster. Tears were about to fall from those heavy lids for the world was spinning too fast for Janet to grab hold of, too early for her to lose Junhong. ‘Why would I be mad, silly?’ She grabbed onto his collars, knocking her forehead hard onto his plastic chest, letting those droplets of fear hit the ground loud and hard. Passer-bys all looking at their direction, curious to know why is the young lady crying her heart out at the subway exit; why is there a handsome looking young man holding onto her, not saying a word, not doing a thing but his pupils flickered from blue to red for a bit.

‘Junhong is here’ Junhong held her shaking body close to his robotic chest which sounds a little unusual today; as if he was hurting and breaking up inside just like how Janet is feeling. His hug had no warmth but his hug was tight, there was nothing he could do more to make her feel better. He hated how limited he could do for Janet. His chin rested on her head, hot air gushing out from his artificial nostrils blows her hair roots hurting her scalp a little.

Janet’s sobbing dies down a little when she looks up to see a Junhong, she’s never seen before. His eyes were half opened; inside his blue pupils beep a small ray of red light. ‘This is no good’ she panicked ‘We need to get home now.’ Her hands were trembling, it seems like time was running faster than it should be. Could it be the time spent at Secret Garden is taking an effect on us? Janet couldn’t help but feel that everything has been fast forwarded; her life was like a video tape. At any time now, events could be fast forwarded to 7 days later where Junhong will be taken away, scrapped or confiscated. The moment Junhong is gone, her life will be rewind to the very beginning where she was torn & alone after Sunggyu left, where life’s in a mess, where there’s no Junhong to begin with.

On the train, she clings onto Junhong’s arms, swaying with the train’s movements. Her fingers were barely even typing properly, her thumbs trembles to find the right alphabets to hit to tweet to the girls to ask for help. ‘Junhong’s eyes started to flash red, what am I going to do?’ Janet reached out for help hoping the girls would tell her what to do. She tapped continuously dragged the tlist down to refresh, tapping on the screen while it loads, waiting for a notification.

Roffy: OMG what happened? Back up all his data into your C:/ before you lose all your data.

Yssa: Back up your boy & call the service center first thing in the morning to get him fixed.

Cher: I’m sorry to hear about that, I hope you get Junhong checked soon, listen to Roffy & Yssa. They can’t go wrong

‘So I need to back up Junhong’s data into the computer C:/ drive hard disk before sending him in for servicing but what if they scrap Junhong away?’

Janet: Thanks ladies, but I received a warning saying that they found something in Junhong that may pose as a threat to mankind & they ll scrap him if they need to. What if they find something?

Roffy: Back up Junhong and reformat his core, wipe out everything before they collect him. Remember to back him up completely.

Wasn’t Roffy was tweeting about backing Bang up in the afternoon before she loads in stuff into his systems? By backing up, she could retrieve and install her old settings if she doesn’t like her current ones just like mobile phones, right? But I don’t know where the USB is, I don’t know if Junhong threw them away?

Junhong’s eye lids were lowering bit by bit; Janet’s heart was a ticking time bomb that would blow up any minute Junhong dies. ‘Junhong-ah, don’t sleep!’ Janet shakes his flailing arms. ‘Junhong-ah!’ she slaps his face lightly. ‘Junhong-ahh…’ Her voice was cracking on the way back home from the subway. ‘We’re about to reach home soon, don’t sleep.’ His weight on her is slowing her down. She drags her half-dead robot into the apartment and places him onto the sofa. ‘Junhong-ah! Junhong! Where’s the USB?’ Janet was on her knees, pleading for Junhong not to sleep, hoping that Junhong has kept the USB somewhere.

‘In… In Junhong’s box.’ Junhong’s voice was screeching in high pitch ‘On top of the drawer…’ She quickly runs into her room to find his box but her hands were too short. Why the did I make him keep his things there? Janet starts to hate the decision she makes from the start; she didn’t want people to find men’s clothing in her drawers and wardrobes, moreover Junhong was tall which is why she told him to fold his belongings and place them in a box, above her drawers. She jumped, again and again, until her knees started to ache. But there isn’t enough time to rest now; she needed to back up his data before his system crashes. With her remaining strength, she bites her lower lips hard and gave a final jump; she managed to knock the box onto the ground. There was a black USB with the green rabbit logo on it, the same one on the shipment box. She quickly ran out of the room to make sure that Junhong isn’t asleep.

She starts up her laptop and launches the ZERO CONTROL computer application & plugged the USB head into the USB slot but what she didn’t know is where do she plug the other end in Junhong. ‘Junhong-ah. Junhong.’ Janet shakes Junhong again, he tries to regain consciousness. He smiled, ‘Yes Janet?’

‘Where do I plug this?’ She waves, showing Junhong the rabbit shaped end of the USB.

‘Here…’ Junhong s his shirt and puling down the collars to reveal the nape of his neck, just at the connecting point of his head and the spinal cord up his neck showed a small slit. Janet slowly plugs the other end rabbit head in, adjusting it sideways to make sure that it’s tightly secured.

‘Do it offline…’ Junhong requested.

‘Why?’ Janet asked as she turns off her wifi settings.

‘Because they are watching…’ Junhong screeched again, ‘Zero Control and the NID are the same.’

That’s when Janet checks on email on her mobile again and realized that Zero Control’s website URL indeed is part of the National Intelligence Defence (NID): nid.zerocontrol.com/client_download

‘ers.’ Janet cursed, cursed these stupid organizations, these ‘upper’ ones who are trying to tear them apart. Cursed her slow realizations to these small details, her stupidity; what would she do without the help of others and without Junhong.

Janet doesn’t know if she can trust this program at all but there isn’t any other program available for the control and system tools for robots other than Zero Control. She right clicks the recognized device E:/ZELO and hits Back up into New Folder in Desktop. She renames the Folder as Junhong on her Desktop and hit the OK button. Junhong’s eyes started to beep in blue while the data is being transferred onto the desktop but still there were hints of red in the inner depths of his pupils, Janet was growing impatient as the countdown timer for the transfer to be complete seems to be freezing at 9 minutes interval.

Her heartbeat was pounding in her heart, her eyes grew hot again. Because she knows once the back up is completed, she needs to reformat Junhong, resetting him to factory settings; back to square one. Tears were boiling at her lower lids, she kept holding onto Junhong’s cold hands, it wasn’t because he was dead; it’s a cold hard fact to remind her that Junhong is a robot, he was never truly ‘alive’. The computer proms her that the Back up is completed; that’s when the tears started to free fall from her eyes, this wasn’t something she had foreseen when she first bought Junhong.

Reluctantly, she moves her cursor over to the E:/ZELO android icon and put this series of unfortunate events to an end. Because after this click, Junhong will return to be Zelo, where there’s no Janet in his memory, where there’s nothing the technicians and NID can get out of him. That way, Zelo will be returned to Janet safely, without worrying that Junhong will be dismantled, be gone forever.

REFORMAT E:/ZELO?

YES

No one knows that deep inside, Janet doesn’t want to click the YES, Janet wants to say NO to every single person out there who tries to deny Junhong’s existence, to any person who tries to eyes on Junhong. Because Junhong is not a maid, Junhong is not a Robot. Junhong is Janet’s everything, he’s what makes Janet’s life complete.

The green bar was slowly filling up to the end its column, Janet’s cries only got louder and louder; echoing in the now emptied house. Junhong’s hands moved to wipe away the tears staining onto her beautiful cheeks. Just before the green bar hits the end, Junhong mutters his last words in his own language:

‘Ujima. Noona, Neokkya.’

A/N: I dont have anymore offdays til next wednesday. I'll try to update if i'm not too tired. I hope I gave you Junhong feels this chapter too. 

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