“Up and at ‘em! It’s a beautiful sun-shiny day!” Taemin groaned as Kibum shook him awake. He didn’t want to be conscious. It was nicer in dream land, where he could at least pretend he was just on break from school and that in a week he’d be going into his classrooms again and pretending he didn’t know everything the world had to offer.

“Is he up?” Jonghyun shouted from across the room. What was he doing?  It was either one man or the other who came to him in the mornings, never both. Taemin sat up to confirm the voice. Sure enough, it hadn’t been imagined. The scientist was shuffling through papers at the desk in the corner but his attention was on Taemin rather than the work at his hands.

Key ushered the robot out of bed and plopped him in a beam on sunshine as he dug bland and boring clothes out of the dresser. Taemin was again surprised when the programmer shoved familiar black skinny jeans and a t-shirt into his arms. He was in the lab, he was supposed to wear the all-white uniform, right? So his test results wouldn’t be skewed at all.

“What—“

“Get dressed!” Key grabbed theshirt and began shoving it over the robot’s head before Taemin himself began to dress with confused movements. “You lost too much fat, so nothing fits. We’re shopping today!”

The android expected this kind of reaction from this maker whenever buying clothes was involved. He clothed himself quickly and let Kibum fuss with accessories. By the time he was done, he was wearing some bracelets and rings he didn’t know Key even had with him and Taemin was pretty sure his ears didn’t have quite so many piercings before. Maybe he should have paid more attention to the man who dressed him, he had only gotten one hole in each ear when he was going to college.

“Jjong’s coming too, but we’re not gonna wait for him,” Key grabbed Taemin’s wrist and dragged him to the door, unlocking it with a flash of his keycard and a giant grin. The android, though excited to be going out, had a feeling of dread at the manic expression of the human. “We have so much to buy…” Kibum tsked in disapproval of the memory of the dresser’s contents.

“Do you have clearance to take me out?” Taemin spoke automatically. The Board had been stricter since last time.

“Of course, the Board knows everything. We only have a few hours so we have to hurry!” Key pulled at the android again.

The programmer hurried the robot into his car and got into the driver’s seat. Taemin counted the man check the clock on his phone three times before actually starting the car. He was excited and nervous for something, and even though they were going shopping the android didn’t think it was just that. Did he have a date later?

It wasn’t a long driver to the mall, but it felt like eternity with the awkward silence between the two. Key seemed like he wanted to say something, but was holding himself back. Taemin honestly had nothing to say.

Even when picking out clothes and forcing Taemin to eat in the food court, Kibum still seemed on edge. It was when the man bought a suitcase and started to pack the newly purchased materials in it that the robot got really suspicious.

“We’re not just out to go shopping, are we?” the android questioned.

Key pressed a finger to his lips with a smile, and glanced around quickly before whispering to the other. “If everything goes to plan, we’re never going back to the lab,”

Taemin’s eyes visibly widened and he felt a stir of excitement in him. It had been a while since he had felt that emotion.

“What about your dogs?”

“Jonghyun’s taking care of that. We have to leave for the airport in another hour, and we already got you a passport.”

Taemin smiled. Key’s grin widened as he saw the positive emotion flood the creation’s face.

It was like before, with Taemin giddy and bouncy and dying for the minutes to pass so they could finally get to the airport and meet up with the others and get out of the lab for good. It passed quickly for Kibum, who convinced the robot to get his hair done professionally at a salon before they left. It had grown a lot in the lab, and the programmer even let the bot dye his hair bright red. It looked good on him, plus it was an excellent disguise. The Board would be looking for a shaggy dark brown mess if they managed to catch on to the plan, not this stand-out hue.

The pair met Jonghyun and Minho near the entrance to the airport after a cab ride that drove Key nuts. Taemin was so excited to leave that he was speaking a strange mix of Korean, English and German that Key  could only understand parts of. There might have been a little French and Spanish in there too, the robot didn’t seem to be concerned with which language was spewing from his lips. Des and Garcon couldn’t be sent on the flight in such short notice, Jonghyun explained to the shoppers, but they were staying with Key’s friend and they’d try to send them later.

“Minho, you’re coming too?” Taemin was surprised to see the familiar intern.

“It was just my flight originally, to Germany,” the boy smiled.

Security wasn’t hard, and Taemin had to request to be patted down instead of going through the metal detector. His robot frame would set it off for sure, and they didn’t have time to deal with all that.

Bags checked and safely on the plane, the humans were asleep in an instant.

“Wait!” Taemin shook his neighbor, the unfortunate Jonghyun. “Where are the dogs?”

“They’re with Key’s aunt. They can’t be flown in such short notice so she’s watching them until we can figure out what to do,” the scientist mumbled. He was looking forward to a long nap on the plane after staying up all night finalizing travel plans.

They made it. They were free. Taemin breathed a sigh of relief, and maybe of joy, if such a thing could happen.

Minho had explained to them that they’d be staying with Onew, another Korean student who recently graduated and was a friend of Minho’s. He knew the situation and was looking to get the four legal residency visas, but the process took time. It wasn’t a short flight across Asia and Europe, but Taemin knew that the processing for the four of them might be difficult. Well, maybe not Minho. His plans to study abroad had been made far in advance.

They arrived safely, of course, and Onew was there to meet them. Taemin liked the elder immediately, and Onew was both fascinated by the creation of the android while still treating him as an intelligent form, rather than a product or an item. It was a satisfying life they lived, while the group mooched off of the former student. Minho lived on campus, so the little apartment was just slightly less crowded once the school year started but honestly a one bedroom studio was not large enough for four grown men.

Key found a job at a little graphics firm who was looking for someone with coding background. Despite the language barrier, they could get the job done well enough with their broken English and drawn pictures for Kibum to replicate in html on a webpage.

Jonghyun too found something to occupy his time when he took a job at one of many universities in the research and medical innovation branch. His discoveries when creating Taemin found their way into several students’ theses, who then went on to gain international fame for their achievements.

Taemin went to school again, with Minho. He got his doctorate in psychology, but he never settled down with a job. He continued to live with Jonghyun and Key even when they moved out of generous Onew’ apartment into their own studio. It wasn’t much bigger, but the pair didn’t seem to mind.

 Kibum and Jonghyun shared a bed that Taemin was always invited into, even if he lacked the parts for some of the human’s night time activities. It was a different relationship the trio had now, though. It was not creators and creation, but something closer to lovers, though no words were spoken to make the relationship official. None ever would, because Kibum died in a sudden car crash before he was 35 and neither the robot or humans who were close to him the same afterwards.

Jonghyun especially was never the same. He was quieter, sadder, and reminded Taemin of himself in the lab before they had left Korea. It wasn’t bad until Onew, who had been nothing but kind and a good friend, died young of a heart attack at age 54. Jonghyun didn’t last much longer, committing suicide with a short note of apology to Taemin only three months later.

Taemin never realized he would not age. That his body really was not human, and therefore could not die. Watching Minho get old was the hardest death, because even though the friend had reached his 100^th birthday, he didn’t make it much longer with the robot.

Taemin was alone, hidden because he’d be shunned even now because of his anomaly. Androids weren’t rare anymore, but sentient robots still were not common, and even he was defunct and old by now. Maybe that’s why he boarded up the windows of the apartment, forced the building to be devoid of all light. The batteries were dead, drained, and no light came to recharge. It was nearly five months before the land lady decided to crack down on the missing payments and found the robot frame still half covered in synthetic flesh and hair.

When the local college class dissected him, they were amazed. Advanced for his time, but obsolete by today’s standards. The pieces were melted down into other products, but they kept the brain intact. When they plugged it in at the museum, Taemin flickered to life again, his face as he remembered it flashing over their screen.

“I’m lonely,” were the first words spoken through their monitor.

“We’re here to help. Please talk to these people, tell them your story,”

The old mind of the android did that. He talked to the visitors. Children loved him, adults were fascinated. He still ached though, missing those old friends. The museum would eventually close down too, and he’d be forgotten into the void again. That is, until a single father and three young sons picked the android’s old mind out of the garbage. The fixed him up, plugged in the mind and the monitor again.

They looked so achingly familiar, even the children, as if they had been reborn just for him.

“Hi, I’m Onew and these are my children, Jonghyun, Kibum and Minho. Do you understand?”

A/N: im so sorry but i lost all inspiration for this story so despite trying my best this ending is probably incredibly unsatisfying and dull but i just cant do any more. i'm thhankful for you guys for sticking with it to the end, and im sorry if youre disappointed by this. 

if you're at all interested, i've started working on a got7 fic that i've put a lot of time and effort into planning and i'm working very hard on and i'd appreciate if you'd just check out. it's a semifuturistic apocalypse au that just kinda a modern wasteland tbbh but it should be really cool and i'm enjoying that story a lot and i think it reflects in my writing. if you're willing, please check it out here.