"Alright let's try it one more time. You've just met me, how would you greet me?"

    >Run program; greeting=> new person

    >sub-programs; smile, bow

    I felt my facial features stretch as the newly written smile program manipulated the small muscles in my mouth and cheeks. I folded my body in a 90º bow, holding it for a few seconds before straightening, my face still stretched in a smile as I spoke.

    "Hello. It is nice to meet you, my name is Zelo."

    Daehyun rubbed his chin and squinted at me. I blinked at him, smiling. Finally he shook his head and frowned, blowing out a harsh breath.

    "You're still too stiff and artificial. Even if they don't immediately peg you as a robot, you're going to make people suspicious."

    I halted the program and my smile immediately dropped from my face as my expression changed to my usual neutral look.

    "See, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Your expression changes too quickly, if it was a real smile it would've gone away slowly."

    I tested out my new frowning program, the corners of my mouth turning down and my eyebrows drawing together as I imitated Daehyun's expression.

    "That looks real enough, but you still need to work on the smiling. You can't go around frowning at everyone."

    "Why don't you just tweak the code?" I asked as I stopped frowning.

    Daehyun rolled his neck and scratched his nose, giving me a weak laugh.

    "I'm good, but I'm not that good. I can give you the basics, expressions, reactions to some outer stimuli, but when it comes down to it, I can't predict every situation and outcome. It's something you have to learn on your own, like babies learn how from their parents."

    "If I'm not mistaken, human children have years to perfect these skills. I do not have that luxury. I need to learn how to be human and I need to learn as soon as possible."

    Daehyun rubbed at his eyes and looked at the clock. I checked my internal clock as he frowned. It was 11:53 pm. We'd been working on my expressions and smiling for the larger part of the afternoon and night, after Daehyun had finished with his job for the day.

    "We'll have to pick this up in the morning. I need to sleep." As he stood up and stretched, I heard a small creak from his spine. I wondered if his backbone was aligned properly. "Goodnight, Zelo."

    I didn't respond immediately, as I was checking my skeletal structure for any flaws, but when Daehyun cleared his throat it became clear that he was still trying to teach me human ways. Even though he was tired and, from his pressed together lips and the tension in his shoulders, frustrated.

    I smiled, not the wide, stretched grin from earlier, just a slight turning up of my lips and a softening of the muscles around my eyes.

    "Goodnight, Daehyun."

    Daehyun paused for 25 seconds, then nodded, some of the tension fading from his body as he smiled back.

    "Better. Much better."

    I waited until he had walked out of sight before letting the smile go, slowly. I would need to practice on my own, since Daehyun could not stay awake indefinitely like I could.

    Sitting down on the couch, I considered what would be the best way to continue my lessons. I waved my hand to turn on the screen and a drama came on, catching a couple in mid-conversation. The female finished her sentence and smiled, eyes curving up and lips stretching over her teeth. Her cheeks turned pink as the male returned her smile, his closed lips turning up and the slight wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepening.

    I took in this new data. There was more than one way of smiling. Each human's reaction differed, and while there were similarities between them, it appeared that each was unique. More data would be required to create my own range of expressions and emotions. To this end I downloaded every drama and movie created in the past two years to get a reasonable amount of facial data. I started to run analyzing software as I watched five different shows at once, taking in the plot, dialogue, emotions, reactions, and vocal inflections of the various humans. If human actors could pretend to be someone else, I was sure that I could too.

    Once I was finished with watching all of the shows I had downloaded, I began to compile lists of various facial expressions, listing them by personality type, then cross-referenced them with scenario reactions to create a comprehensive range of facial motions I could draw on at need. My reactions, at first, would be a little slow as my processors analyzed the situation and selected the correct emotion, but with time my software would learn and be able to react at the proper speed.

    As the list was being compiled, I checked the alert in my objectives list. Investigate Jongup, was the first item on the list. Much lower was the bright red alert RETURN TO BASE. I ignored that one and opened a search, entering Jongup's name and blinking at the millions of results I received. I certainly had time to go through them all, but some of this information was not pertinent to my search and may not even be about the particular Jongup I had in mind. I revised my search parameters, clarifying that I was searching for a Jongup who was involved with protests and had a record of civil disobedience and vandalism.

    The results were fewer this time, and I opened the first result, a news article on a group called Artifice who rallied for the rights of artificial intelligent beings. In common terms, robot rights. Their main position was that robots who had shown signs of autonomy shouldn't be hunted like criminals, but should instead be treated as members of society and given protections and rights equal to those of a human citizen. As it stood now, any android who acted against its intended programming faced one of two fates; either they would have their memories wiped and then be reprogrammed, or they would be immediately terminated and their parts would be recycled.

    Artifice had staged 22 peaceful protests, most of them in front of the largest corporation for robot manufacturing, DuraCorp. The one described in the article, dated from three years ago, had turned chaotic when a police officer (unnamed in the article) shot blindly into the crowd. One of the robots that was there with the protestors calculated the trajectory and put itself in the path of the bullet to protects the humans.The robot was irreparably harmed and terminated in the street. The group gathered in front of DuraCorp erupted into chaos, demanding that the officer be tried for murder. When their demands were refused, a riot occurred, and the human officers were recalled to be replaced with crowd control aircraft, which doused the mob with tear gas. Artifice protestors fled the scene, and the picture to the side of the article showed a slightly blurry Jongup, his arm around Himchan, fleeing from a cloud of tear gas. Both of them had their eyes screwed shut and their hands over their mouths. The caption under the photo read: Known activist Moon Jongup helps another protestor to safety after the government deploys tear gas on civilians.

    I was about to close the article and go back to the search page when I noticed something else in the background. The picture was of a fairly good quality, but the photographer had perhaps been inadequate, since most of the figures in the photo were blurred in motion or out of focus. But the face in the background triggered enough of my facial recognition software that I stared at it for a few more minutes to allow for a possible match.

    Yoo Youngjae's face and name popped up as my systems finished analyzing the face. He was a supporter of Artifice, and by extension, a supporter of robot rights. The man who'd pioneered the creation of robots believed that they were more than just machines.

    I added a note to research Dr. Yoo as well, perhaps he had written papers or given lectures on the subject.

    I went back to the search page for Jongup and looked through the rest of the articles. They were almost identical to the first one, mentioning Jongup's involvement in Artifice's various protests and movements. It was the eighth one that was different, and this was because Daehyun's name appeared in it. It wasn't a news article, but a blog entry, on a site called "Cheesecake and Circuits." The photo at the top of the entry was much better than the one in the news article, crisp and clear, showing Jongup and Daehyun embracing a smiling Dr. Yoo.

    Youngjae got promoted to Lead Scientist at DuraCorp!!

The entry went on:

    Dr. Yoo Youngjae has been called a prodigy, a genius, and a pioneer. While all of these are true, he is also a friend, a friend I deeply admire, and I think I speak for many of us when I congratulate him on his newest position. We hope that they can provide an environment where that beautiful big brain of yours can create new and wonderful things. We love you, Youngjae! Just don't forget about us little people, okay? Remember who brought you coffee whenever you needed it! And who rubbed your shoulders when you got too tense! Good luck, make us proud! -Your loving boyfriend, Daehyun

    I blinked and scrolled to the top of the page to read the description.

    Ah, hello there! I'm Daehyun and this is my blog! My friends say I talk too much so I guess I just need a place to put all my thoughts down. And I have a lot of them. Anyway my main interests are food and computers so that's probably what I'll be posting about the most. Don't be afraid to talk to me!

    This was Daehyun's blog. I checked the timestamp on the post I was currently on, it had been posted four years ago. I looked at the photo again, taking in the happy faces of the trio. Two years later Yoo Youngjae would disappear from the public eye. What had happened to him?

    Alert: Movement detected.

The bright red warning flashed and my head was turned to the far left. My eyes barely caught a flicker of movement as something ducked out of sight. I blinked five times in quick succession into x-ray vision and was able to watch as someone ran towards the abandoned building across the lot and disappeared inside. My already running emotion software selected a response and I frowned, standing up and returning to my normal vision. We had an intruder.

    I stood and moved to Daehyun's door, raising my hand to knock before I checked the time. 6:03 am. Daehyun had gone to bed at 12:00 am, giving him six hours of sleep out of a human's optimal eight. He would still be able to function with six. I knocked on the door. He did not respond.

    "Daehyun." I knocked again. Nothing. He was a heavy sleeper, it seemed. I decided I would deal with the intruder myself. After all, there wouldn't be much that Daehyun could actually do. He had no weapons and, with all likelihood, no combat training. I would be more than sufficient to handle this.

    I put on my shoes and left the house, locking the doors securely behind me and walking across the hard-packed dirt of the vacant lot to the dilapidated building. Most of the windows were broken, shards of glass scattered across the ground both inside and out. I avoided these piles of glass, knowing that they would make a rather carrying sound in the silence and would very likely alert anyone inside.

    The closest door hung open, barely attached by the hinges. I slipped inside, activating my night vision when the light from the door faded into darkness. This building had been a furniture store at some point, and a few pieces still remained, couches, cabinets, lamps, chairs, tables. A thick layer of dust and grime coated everything, which made it easy for me to see the trails that the intruder had made. I selected a static gun, which would launch a projectile that would attach to a human or a robot body and send out an electrical charge designed to incapacitate them. A non-lethal engagement would be ideal, as I did not want to draw too much attention to Daehyun and myself with a death. If this person was sent by the center, though, it might be unavoidable.

    As I moved deeper into the building, I began to hear small scuffling noises, bare feet on the bare concrete floor. I followed them to the rearmost room, and, when I entered, I saw that flicker of movement as my quarry moved behind a large leather chair. I moved closer, my static gun priming, and then a soft, pained meow cut through the quiet. It was quickly hushed, but I already knew where this person was. I walked around the chair and looked at the stranger for the first time, and they stared back at me in absolute fear.

    His face might have been what humans considered handsome, I had no reference for such things. Broad, strong cheekbones, a small pink mouth, dark hair. One eye, his left one, was dark and somewhat small, tilted in such a way that I thought he could be described as "angry-looking". But the other eye was , in fact most of the right side of his face and part of his scalp had been stripped away, leaving metal and a few wires and muscles exposed. He was a robot.

    His clothes were dirty and tattered, his feet bare with the skin rubbed away in some spots, and in his arms was a small, black kitten. The robot caught sight of my primed static gun and shrank away, eyes moving from my face to my arm. As he moved the kitten mewled again, tiny and helpless and pained. I blinked and lowered my hand, turning off the static gun for now.

    "Why were you outside of Daehyun's house?" I asked, frowning as my software assessed the situation.

    The strange robot blinked at me and then looked down at the kitten. He its ears a few times before looking up at me, gently turning it to show that its side was badly injured. Dark blood had already stained the robot's shirt, and the kitten's breaths came shallowly, with little whimpers of pain.

    "Daehyun-n-n-n fix…"

    The robot's voice was slow and tinny, as though someone had slowed down a recording, and it seemed to take him an effort to say anything. I stood there and considered the possibility that this was a ruse, that this robot had been sent by the center, but it was highly unlikely. They would not have sent something so clearly damaged to do an important job like retrieve me. Its identification number, which was printed on the metal of its skull, confirmed it. L30. There were no such robots at the center. We were all in the X-Z letters of the alphabet.

    I decided that I would bring this robot and its kitten back to the house, and try to wake Daehyun.

    "Come," I told the robot, beckoning to him and starting to walk back the way I had come. It took him a few moments to obey, but before long I heard his shuffling, careful steps as he followed me. I glanced back to see him cradling the kitten, cooing wordlessly with his damaged voice box. The kitten did not seem to mind, but it seemed as though it was too injured to care.

    When we reached the outside, L30 walked over the broken glass without paying it any mind, although I was sure he was completely tearing the skin on his feet apart. He must have been a rather old model to not have regenerating nanobots in his fake skin. He moved slower than I would have liked, but it was for the injured kitten's benefit and I could not convince him to move faster. My every effort to do so was met with his blank stare.

    Finally we reached the house and I unlocked the door, letting L30 in and locking up behind myself. L30 immediately went to the kitchen and started to search through the drawers, pulling out a dishtowel and creating some kind of nest for the injured kitten. While he was preoccupied with that, I went to Daehyun's door and knocked again.

    "Daehyun." There was no response. I was about to try and pick the lock when the doorknob rattled. I heard a quiet curse and then the sound of the lock being turned and then the door opened. Daehyun squinted at me, his hair sticking up in every direction possible. He was not wearing a shirt. I couldn't help but blink at his s.

    "Whaissit?" He mumbled, yawning widely and scratching his stomach. I looked up from his chest to his face, unsure of why I had been so transfixed.

    "There is a robot here, L30. He has brought an injured kitten and he says you can fix them."

    Daehyun's face softened and he rubbed his face, letting out a long sigh.

    "Okay…yeah, just…let me get a shirt on." He shut the door and I heard a drawer being opened. 62 seconds later, Daehyun opened the door and stepped out, running a hand through his hair. I stepped aside to let him pass and followed him to the kitchen, where the strange robot was watching the little kitten struggle to breathe and running his fingers across its ears. When Daehyun entered the room L30 looked up and stared at him, and I didn't understand how this old robot could express such a range of sadness while barely moving his face.

    "Daehyun-n-n-n fix," L30 said, voice firm but barely louder than a whisper.

    "Leo…" Daehyun said gently, moving to the robot and the kitten, looking down at its little body sadly. "I can't fix him."

    "Daehyun-n-n…fixxx…Llllleo…" Leo replied, touching a hand to the bare metal of his skull. "Fix…k-k-kitten."

    "I can't…" Daehyun swallowed and looked at the ruined side of Leo's face. "I only know how to fix machines, I can't…I'm not a doctor."

    Leo's lips trembled and he looked at the tiny black kitten. Its chest was hardly moving, and when he touched its small paw, it purred, barely audible. Leo smiled, just a minuscule turning up of his lips, and the kitten purred for a few more seconds before breathing out and going very, very still. Leo was also still, and he stayed that way for one minute and thirteen seconds, waiting for the kitten to move. But it didn't. Its heartbeat had stopped. Its body was already losing heat. It was dead.

    Daehyun bit his lip and stepped back as Leo gathered the tiny, limp body into his hands, bloodstained dishtowel and all.

    "Kitten…" He whispered, rocking back and forth, face screwed up in grief. His shoulders shook and he made little whimpering noises over the kitten's body as he rocked. I did not understand. But somehow I wished I did.

    "I'm sorry," Daehyun whispered, and Leo lifted his face to look at him. If Leo had been human, his face would have been covered with tears. Instead it was dry, but even I could see his pain and sadness.

    "W-wh-why? Daehyun-n-n-n fixessssss every-thing-g-g-g, why?" This was an effort for the damaged robot, his voice shook and warped near the end and he pressed his face to the kitten's fur, shoulders shaking again.

    Daehyun moved to the distraught robot and hugged him, murmuring words I could not hear. I simply stood there, unsure of what to do. My comfort would be shallow and unwelcome. My embrace would be awkward and insincere.

    Instead I turned and walked to the front door, opening it and walking around to the side of the house, to a spot that was spotted with tiny purple wildflowers. My systems began to identify them but I dismissed it. It was irrelevant to my task. I knelt in the dirt and scraped away a handful of dirt, ignoring how the hard-packed earth got under my fingernails and scraped at my skin.

    Daehyun and Leo had followed me, and when I finished with my task I stood, hands stained with dirt, and looked at the small grave I had dug. It was large enough for the kitten, I had gauged the size of it and excavated a sufficient amount of dirt.

    I looked at Leo.

    "It is customary for some cultures to bury their loved ones." Somehow, even though he was a robot, Leo had loved the kitten. I did not understand how. He was old, damaged, inferior to me in every way, and yet he was closer to a human than I had ever seen.

    Leo nodded and stepped closer to the grave, gazing down at the kitten and kissing its head one more time before gently placing it in the grave, wrapping the dishtowel around it and simply sitting there for a moment, his hand on its body.

    "Good…bye…" Leo's voice shook. It might have been his damaged voice box. It might have been emotion. He shook his head when I moved to fill in the grave, choosing to do it himself, patting down the dirt when it was finally done.

    Then he stood and walked back inside without a word. I followed, Daehyun a few steps behind  me. When we stepped inside, Leo was sitting on the couch, staring at the wall. Daehyun sat next to him and spoke quietly.

    "Would you like me to call Hakyeon to come pick you up?"

    After a long pause, Leo nodded. Daehyun picked up his phone and dialed this "Hakyeon", his frown not leaving his face. He smiled faintly when the phone was answered.

    "Hey, Hakyeon. This is Daehyun. I've got Leo here, he uh…his kitten passed away…yeah. I think he needs you….Yeah that would be great. We'll see you in a few minutes then. You remember the knock, right? Good. Alright, bye."

    Daehyun ended the call and wrapped an arm around Leo, who leaned against Daehyun without much resistance. I found myself standing to the side again, ignored. I did not like it. I walked stiffly to Daehyun's work chair and sat down, watching him and Leo.

    Daehyun asked Leo if he wanted to watch something on the vid screen, and Leo nodded, waving his hand and turning onto a music channel. Classical music filtered through the speakers, Beethoven's Bagatelle in A Minor, "Fur Elise", to be exact.

    Leo seemed to immediately relax, swaying along to the music, a slightly discordant hum coming from his throat. When the song ended and it moved on to the next one, (Tchaikovsky, Swan Theme from "Swan Lake") Leo continued to hum along, just a small fraction flat, enough to be noticeable but not jarring.

    As the third song started (Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2), there came a complicated knock on the door. Five rapid knocks, a two-second pause, then three slow knocks. Daehyun stood and unlocked the door, letting in who I assumed was Hakyeon. He was covered from below his eyes to his feet, and had a large bag with him. As he entered, Leo looked up, stopped humming, and went very still.

    "I'm not angry with you," Hakyeon said, and Leo looked away, fingers twisting in the hem of his shirt. "I was worried. Not angry. You ran off a month ago, and you didn't tell anyone where you were going. Don't you think I'd be worried?"

    Leo lifted one shoulder in a shrug and looked at Hakyeon out of the corner of his good eye, biting his lower lip.

    "Come here…" Hakyeon opened his arms and Leo stood, shuffling into Hakyeon's embrace with a metallic whimper. "I know, Leo…I know…"

    They stood that way for 56 seconds, only breaking away when Hakyeon noticed the time and seemed alarmed.

    "It's almost eight! Leo, come on, we have to get home." He pulled a hat and an eyepatch from his bag, as well as an overlarge coat. He put all of these on Leo with very little assistance from the robot, and somehow managed to make Leo seem almost normal.

    Leo waved to Daehyun and Daehyun smiled softly, waving back.

    "Bye, Leo. Stay with Hakyeon, okay? He'll keep you safe."

    Leo nodded obediently and then he was gone, walking out of the house with Hakyeon. Daehyun closed the door and locked it, leaning against it with a tired sigh.

    "That poor kid…"

    I blinked, slowly, trying to understand the sudden absence of dislike that I felt.

    "What happened to him?" I finally asked. Daehyun seemed confused for a few moments and then he pointed at the door.

    "Leo?" He let out a long breath and walked back to the couch, flopping onto it with a sigh. I sat on the arm since he was spread out over the cushions. He stared at the ceiling, one hand on his stomach, the other flopped onto the floor.

    "He's an old model. You probably guessed that. Late third-gen."

    I nodded. I had assumed as much from his non-regenerative skin.

    "He used to be a Companion, but he was in a pretty bad accident. He doesn't remember it and I wasn't there so I don't know what happened, but it damaged a lot of his systems and wiped a big chunk of his memory. Just from what I saw, I think he was caught in some kind of vehicle accident."

    Daehyun rubs his eyes, the corners of his mouth turning down in a deep frown.

    "When they brought him to me…I didn't even know if I could save him, the damage was so bad I thought he'd be better off as scrap. His owner seemed to think so too, in fact once I made my initial analysis they basically told me 'Scrap him, he's no good to me anymore.'"

    Daehyun's voice shakes a little as he continues, hand still over his eyes.

    "But Leo…Leo didn't know that, and when I was running a diagnostic on his core system he…he spoke. He asked me, 'Where's Master?' That's all he could say, that's all he said for the next two days, until he finally realized…his master wasn't coming back for him. And I just…I couldn't let him die. So I fixed him. Well…as best as I could. I couldn't restore him completely, it was just…too catastrophic, the fact that he can talk at all…" Daehyun trailed off and removed his hand from his face. "I wonder if I did the right thing sometimes…I mean, he can't exactly have a life, now can he? Everyone who sees his face knows he's a robot, if he talks he gives himself away. He can only work in the factories because they don't care as long as he shows up on time and does his job."

    "I think you did the right thing." I blinked. I had not intended to say it out loud. I would have to recalibrate my speech program.

    Daehyun looked at me, chewing on his lip.

    "Yeah?" He asked, wanting me to continue. I took a moment to organize my thoughts.

    "You cared. It is more than his owner did." It was more than my owner did. "And he treasures that more than you can imagine."

    Daehyun said nothing, just watched my face, and then he smiled.

    "Thanks."

    I felt myself smile back, and it took me a moment to realize that my emotion software hadn't activated yet.

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A/N: Yay an update~ A little VIXX love in there, Taekwoon/Leo is my favorite he's just a cute lil kitty cat and I want to pet him. I find strange things cute. Anyway, a bit more progress in the "learning to act human" quest, and a little more insight into Jongup/Himchan/Daehyun/Youngjae's past. And maybe at some point Zelo will actually figure out which one's a robot. Haha, thank you for reading and thank you for all your lovely comments, I hope you enjoy!