The first thing in the morning Janet did was to ring up TS Electronics to get Junhong fixed. Her hands held onto Junhong’s cold & stiff hands while she waited for dialing tone to connect to the other party.

‘Hello. Good Morning, this is TS Electronics Technical Department. Technician Kang speaking.’

‘Hi, I’m Janet.’ Her voice quivered, ‘My robot has ceased to function, could you guys send someone to come and collect it for servicing?’

‘Miss Janet, our client data system states that your address is …’ the person was confirming Janet’s details while Janet’s mind was at somewhere else.

‘Hello? Miss Janet?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ Janet answered, soullessly.

‘We’ll come and pick it up at 12 noon.’

For the next couple of hours, Janet laid in Junhong’s chest holding him for the last time, not knowing if he’ll return to her side safely. The eeriness of the silence creeps into her bones because there’s not churning sounds from Junhong, there’s no air pressure pump gushing from Junhong’s nose; in this house, there’s nothing.

Nothing ‘alive’.

There’s no Junhong making breakfast, there’s no Junhong waking her up, there’s nothing but loneliness and fear that Janet has to face alone for the next couple of hours, day, months and maybe years. Janet knows, even if Junhong ceased to exist the moment she sends him out of this door, life still goes on. But life isn’t complete if Junhong isn’t part of it; she isn’t really ‘living’ the life she could have been living with Junhong. 

‘Junhong-ah…’ Janet croaked, ‘You must come back to me, you understand?’ The words she wanted to say was choking up in , as if there was a stopper blocking those heartfelt words from coming out of her chest.  Maybe she had kept all these feelings, all these regret in her for too long, her forced strong image doesn’t allow her to breakdown, to let her guard down; to let someone else know her weakeness. Her weakness was none other than Junhong. Oxygen doesn’t seem to help her live, they only made her lungs hurt more whenever she tries to catch her breath to cries her heart out, she could only exhale all the pain in her chest; echoing through the house.

Time always seem to pass so fast when she’s with Junhong, she realized it’s already 11.55 A.M. They TS Electronics people would be here to take Junhong away in 5 minutes. Her tears roll down his plastic casing, leaving trails of water droplets collecting at his collarbones. She struggles to say the last few words to Junhong, but she knows whatever she say now is useless because he can never hear her at all. Footsteps were gathering at her front door; the door bell rang. Janet wipes away the mess on her face, adjusted her shirt before opening the door, leading the two men to her robot on the sofa.

Junhong was cling clanging when they were moving him out of the apartment and chucked him onto the trolley. ‘HEY, CAN’T YOU GUYS BE GENTLE WITH HIM?’  Janet snapped, hating how the two men handled Junhong. ‘Him?’ the man scoffed, ‘he’s just a robot, m’am. When he comes back he will be as good as new; fully refurbished.’ Her eyes were burning with anguish; tears started to fall off her eyes again. ‘I’m sorry m’am. We’ll be more careful’ the other guy apologized, sitting Junhong up properly on the trolley before leaving; trying to calm Janet down.

All Janet could do was to watch them take him away, his hands scrapping the ground as they pushed the trolley into the elevator. Her heart was scrapped like his hands, painstakingly slow and rough as the vision of the three men slowly narrowed into metal sheets, her heart cries out the words she couldn’t say.

‘You promised you would never leave me but I send you away. I’m sorry.’

Please come back to me…

A/N: Sorry I'm very sick atm, here's a short update. Will try to update soon, i didnt think they flowed, so i separated the remainder into another chapter. Cheers.