“Everyone jump into your favorite bed!” The five boys raced to a bed matching their tastes in style and color, hopping onto it before any of the others could get a chance. Ikea, home of all possible things for the home and quite fun to run around in. The five best friends Kris, Luhan, Yixing, Xiumin, and Chen all took to the beds as their chaperone abandoned them for their own shopping. Excited to derp around in the large mazelike store, each of the boys laughed when another fell onto the floor or ran into a wall.

With their beds chosen, Kris went around to each of them and snapped a quick photo of how each person posed in the bed. The thought of how many different people had done the very same thing before didn’t cross any of their minds. Xiumin had chosen a bed with purple covers, Luhan with green, Chen’s had dark wooden posts, Kris’s was very soft, and Lay’s molded to the body.

As fun as gallivanting around the rooms section was, the displays had to come to an end. After the bedrooms and other modern day and stylish rooms were through, the knickknacks and other oddities took the stage. One of the real shocking sights was a whole section of outdated Models from Q to X. All of the Model Qs shakily moved their joints and smiled at the passing customers, asking if they needed to be satisfied or not, while the Model Xs remained motionless and waiting for their first command.

One of the Model T’s in front of Kris blinked a whole lot more than it should have, and it even occasionally opened its mouth, as if to speak, and quickly closed it. Its body moved slowly, head creaking as it tried to follow Kris’s shaking hand. Kris stared into Model Z’s eyes, noting the dark circles under them, and watched as the Model started to vibrate and tried to inch closer to him.

“That’s odd.” Kris mumbled. “This model acts like he wants me.” He didn’t have more time to observe the Model because their chaperone called saying he had just acquired a couple of chairs and was heading to checkout at the moment. Not a moment too, soon, the store was heating up like a wildfire.

At the self checkout stations the boys finally settled down and let the sluggishness hit. “So I was watching this Swedish movie last night,” Luhan said for the tenth time that day, and frankly, the joke wasn’t funny anymore. However, a gay boy joining a suicide circle and inevitably dying on the floor of a bar did sound interesting. Maybe later he’d watch it later. When the five guys and their driver/guardian/adult figure finally exited the building, Kris spotted some of the store’s workers carting a Model T to the back of the building near a dumpster.

“What are they doing with him? Is that the same one I was looking at before?” Nobody even had time to react as Kris broke away from the group and confronted the workers.

The three workers there, and Model T, all cocked their heads at him in unison, questioning his intentions with just their annoyed posture. “Do you need help sir?” The tallest of the three asked.

Their intimidation techniques failed. “Yeah, I’d like to ask what you’re doing with this Model T. Why aren’t you keeping him on the shelves?”

The one in the middle and sporting a stubbly moustache snorted. “This Model has been bought and returned fifteen times. We finally got the okay from Kim League to trash it. No one would want a defect like this.”

“I’ll take him!” True, he was defected, and the problem might be something serious, but Kris just couldn’t deny that Model T was just as attracted to him as he was to Model T. Was he expecting to just get him for free? Yes.

“We’ll sell him at a quarter price. You got the money?”

“What the man! You’re throwing him out, just give him to me!” Neither side budged, except Model T started to make a deep humming noise as if to protest to the conspiracy brewing. Model T blinked longingly at Kris and then he knew he had no choice. Kris pulled out his wallet begrudgingly and chucked a couple of wadded bills at the three men, holding his hand out for Model T to take in the process. The tallest counted the rumpled bills with a greasy snigger, confirming and bowing out like the trash he conveyed.

“Come on, let’s go back to the others, um, Tao.” Kris had planned on just leading Tao to the car with him, but as soon as he spoke the other’s new name Model T grabbed him and crushed his arms and ribs in a breathtaking hug, crashing his lips upon the other. He and nibbled with his gel lips and marble teeth, giving Kris a light head and making him forget what day it was, his birthday. Tao whined, running his synthetic fingers over Kris’s real skin and pinching what was his now, sparking the other with more than just electricity and brushes of sensitivity.

“Yes master,” Tao whispered into Kris’s lips, diving once more into the person his little machine heart had been waiting so long for. “Happy Birthday.”