Yixing’s metal skeleton is beginning to rust through his translucent skin and synthetic muscle. There’s a dark red smudge along his cheekbone; speckles of orange dotted along the length of his arm like macabre freckles.

He doesn’t like it. Jongdae finds it cute, but then Jongdae’s always had a twisted sense of what constitutes attractive. He can fix it – droids can always be fixed – but it involves a complex operation, some chemical reaction Yixing doesn’t understand and doesn’t really care about. What bothers him is that it costs money.

For once, they actually do have money – Yixing gets tips, Jongdae gets gigs – but tech like this is expensive and prolonged; Yixing would have to wait weeks to be reawakened, and Jongdae gets antsy when he’s left alone. He says his circuits conduct better when Yixing’s around; Yixing’s aware that’s as close to romantic as Jongdae can ever get – if you could call what they have romance, that is.

And besides – it’s not that obvious. Not so obvious that people stare at him on the street, at least. Yixing is an older model; his parts are becoming harder and harder to find, and honestly, it would just be easier to upgrade. But upgrading costs credits he and Jongdae will never be able to afford.

“Besides,” Jongdae whispers one night, when Yixing is positively crackling with electricity – a side effect of the rusting – “it adds a certain joie de vivre to your face.” He’s always warm to the touch, Jongdae – possibly because he’s just that little more human than Yixing – but the touch of his fingers on the rusty spots is icy.

He kisses them anyway, because he just had new tech implanted in his lips that’s supposed to make his kisses burn; Yixing neglects to tell him his kisses burnt anyway.