Date: August 23rd, 2234

Time: 15:32:01 (UTC+09:00)

Planet: Earth

Location: Pyongyang, United Districts of Korea

>>Pyongyang Central Park

Yongguk scanned their surroundings, assessing everything and making a temporary mental file of the data.  Trees, grass, some flowers - azaleas and marigold.  Wooden benches, stone pathways, other humans.  Families.  Kites.  Two dogs - pomeranian and labradoodle.  Overall Danger Assessment: 29%

Unless one of the dogs had rabies.  Edit: Reassess: 34%

Glancing back at the skating rink at one end of the park, Yongguk walked over to where the woman with the pomeranian sat on one of the wooden benches, a reading tablet in one hand and the dog leash wrapped around the other.  She looked up as Yongguk knelt down beside the dog, making a move to pet it.

“Shouldn’t you ask first?” she questioned him, sounding more amused than annoyed.  Yongguk didn’t answer and instead shifted his hand to scratch behind the tiny dog’s ear.  Then, discreetly, the tip of his forefinger opened up just enough for a needle to shoot out and prick the pet’s skin.  It yelped, and before the owner had a chance to protest, Yongguk stood quickly and walked away.  Rabies Test: Negative

“Yongguk!” Yongguk turned quickly in the direction of his master’s voice.  Zelo jogged up, skateboard tucked under his arm, blonde curls stuck to his forehead with sweat and breathless.  He smiled widely at his companion as he slowed to a stop in front of him.  Height: 185cm Weight: 63kg Age: 16 years, 9 months, 23 days, 5 hours, 6 minutes, 11 seconds

“You ready to go?” the boy asked.  Yongguk took a moment to process how long they had been at the park.  24 minutes, 48 seconds

“Are you?” he responded.  It was strange for Zelo to leave so soon after arriving.  He had the physical capacity to skate for hours.  Longest Skate Time for: Choi, Zelo: 6 hours, 32 minutes, 59 seconds

Zelo shrugged.  “Youngjae has choir practice and Jongup was a no-show.  I’m ready to turn in, anyways.”

Yongguk tilted his head to the side.  Behind the blank stare, microscopic gears turned and wires sparked information from one microchip to the next inside of him.  Zelo was finished already?  Was he ill?  Negative.  He looked fine.  He always looked fine.  Did he get into an argument with his friend?  Negative.  He did not appear upset.  He was smiling.  He had a wonderful smile.  Then was he bored?  Theoretical Affirmative.  Zelo was often bored.  He had so much energy.  He was so alive.

“Jello!” called the friend - Name: Yoo, Youngjae - from Approximately 24 feet away.  He was waving his hand above his head in a very animated sort of way, holding skating equipment in the other.  “You forgot your kneepads!”

Yongguk narrowed his eyes in concentration.  Jello [jel-oh] - noun - nickname for Zelo, given by Moon Jongup and used with affection by Moon Jongup, Jung Daehyun, and Yoo Youngjae

“Oh!” Zelo looked down quickly at his legs to confirm that he was, indeed, missing them.  “Thanks, Youngjae!  Hang on, Guk.”

Guk [gu-hk] - noun - nickname for au paire robot Yongguk, given by Choi Zelo and used with affection by Choi Zelo

He watched attentively as Zelo jogged back over to his friend, taking the knee pads while laughing at something the older boy said.  Youngjae laughed as well, rubbing the back of his head in what appeared to be self-consciousness.  Yongguk knew laughter when he heard it, and embarrassment and amusement when he saw them, but he understood neither.  He was not a robot made with the purpose of being overtly emotional, so most humor was lost on him.

It took much multi-tasking on his part to keep track of their surroundings, and constantly re-assess the danger level of the area, but his focus was always first and foremost on the young master.  And so, he most definitely didn’t miss it when Youngjae got up on the tips of his toes and pecked his lips against Zelo’s.

Yongguk’s pupils dilated and his vision zeroed in on the pair of teens.  What was that?  Was it bad?  Was Zelo hurt?  He didn’t appear to be hurt.  He was just laughing, as he snatched his kneepads from Youngjae and turned around to jog back over to Yongguk.

“‘Kay,” Zelo chirped happily, swinging his kneepads over his shoulder and readjusting his skateboard under his arm.  “Let’s go.”

“What was that?” Yongguk asked sharply.  Zelo jumped a little in surprise at the sudden change in tone.  Yongguk hadn’t intended to be so gruff, but he needed to make sure that Zelo was alright.  The safety and protection of the young master was first priority, no exceptions.  His file needed to be updated immediately with this new information.

“What was what?” Zelo asked, with some hesitation.  Yongguk hoped that this didn’t mean Zelo did not know, either.

“Youngjae,” he answered the boy quickly.  “He touched your mouth with his.  What was that?”

“Wh- that?” Zelo’s expression changed from confusion to surprise.  “That was- that was a kiss.  Wait, don’t tell me you don’t know what a kiss is?”

Yongguk averted his eyes, ashamed he lacked sufficient information.  “Then I will not.”

Zelo stared at him for a while.  “Huh.  I guess they really do cut all the romantic stuff out of you guys.”

“The job of a Class-A Matoki Au Paire, model number six-six-two-four-seven-nine, does not require any knowledge of a ual or romantic nature,” Yongguk rattled off systematically.  Zelo rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he adjusted his board yet again and started walking.  Yongguk kept exact pace beside him.

“So you are unhurt?” he questioned.

“What?  Yeah,” Zelo looked over at him.  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Yongguk didn’t answer.  He stared ahead and tried to make this new information fit within the boundaries of his binary code.  It wasn’t working.

“I do not understand,” he said finally.  The two had stopped at a crosswalk and were waiting for the light to signal them it was okay to cross.

Zelo eyed him curiously.  “What part don’t you understand?”

Yongguk stared ahead some more.  “I do not know.”

“Well, it’s something that you do if you like someone,” Zelo tried to explain.  “But, not just anybody that you like, it has to be someone special.”

“Special?” Yongguk echoed.  He looked up quickly again.  For some reason, this sounded strange to him.  He was not agreeing with this statement.  He did not approve.  “Youngjae is special to you?”

“N-no,” Zelo said quickly, shaking his head.  He looked flustered - Yongguk wondered why.  “Not special enough to kiss.”

“Then why did you touch lips?” Yongguk persisted.

“I- I don’t know,” Zelo was now sounding exasperated.  “Youngjae just does that sometimes.  He kisses everybody.”

Yongguk, not wanting to upset the boy further, decided to take his questions on a different route.  “What is the purpose of a kiss?”

The light flashed a light, airy green.  Zelo seemed stumped by this question as he and the robot walked between the halted traffic.  Yongguk scanned each car for potential threats.

“I guess, if it’s with somebody special, it’s supposed to feel good,” he said on the other side.  They continued to walk, the road on their left and the tall walls of shops and apartment buildings flanking them on their right.

“So you are unhurt?” Yongguk asked again, just to be sure.  He did not see how this ‘kiss’ could be anything but harmful.

“Yes, geez!” Zelo stopped and spun around to face him, causing Yongguk to stop suddenly as well.  “It’s fine, okay?  Kisses are fine!  Here, I’ll show you, just-”

He cut off with a huff, then leaned forward and pressed his lips against Yongguk’s.  Yongguk recoiled a bit in initial wariness, expecting pain.  But then he stopped.  And then, suddenly, something clicked.

Class-A Matoki Au Paire robots were not programmed with romantic or ual knowledge, as it was believed it would hinder them in their designed purpose, which was to care for one specific human.  But they were highly adaptable.  And Yongguk was adapting.  Fast.

Sparks leapt through the microchips and coding ran a mile a millisecond and the wires that were threaded through him like veins heated up with the electricity coursing through his entire system.  His sensors buzzed and his eyes widened as they tried to take in the image of Zelo with his eyes gently closed and for half a second he felt his entire system shut down.  He was trying to download an entire new format of programming and his system was in overload.

Then Zelo pulled away, and his system flickered back on, and the sensors on his lips tingled.  And he calculated the kiss to have been Approximately 1.24 seconds and that was not long enough to collect all the data he needed.

“See?  It doesn’t hu-” Zelo squeaked in surprise when Yongguk grabbed him by the hips and yanked him back to himself, smashing his lips against the other’s as hard as he could.  All the things he had been holding dropping to the ground, and Zelo let out some incoherent, muffled protest and tried to pull away, but Yongguk brought one hand up to the back of the boy’s head to keep him in place.  The other arm wound around his waist, and Yongguk dragged Zelo’s body up against his own, leaning back against the wall of a shop building for support.

This kiss lasted longer, for Approximately 10.49 seconds, with Zelo his fingers in Yongguk’s shirt and tugging at the material, and shuffling his feet as he tried to keep his balance in the embrace.  Then Yongguk felt the boy’s chest tighten with a lack of air, so he forced himself to pull away.

“Yon-” Zelo began breathlessly, eyes wide with disbelief.  “Y- eep!”

Yongguk had now moved on to his cheek, dotting kisses down over his jaw and onto the slope of his neck in a senseless pattern.  He was mapping out the boy’s flesh in his mind, seeing how it felt to kiss other places besides his lips.  He was quickly finding that it was not unpleasant, but did not create the same effect.

Zelo pushed against his shoulders with both hands, trying to twist out of the grip, but Yongguk’s strength was that of a superiorly-crafted being, and he kept him firmly in place.

At the juncture where his neck met his shoulder, Yongguk had the thought that kisses reminded him of bites.  That’s why he had thought they would be painful.  But they hadn’t been - they definitely had not been painful.  So, experimentally, he nipped at the boy’s pale skin.

“Ow!”

Yongguk stopped immediately, pulling away and letting the boy go.  He hadn’t meant to hurt him; an au paire hurting their master was unthinkable.  It was the highest form of system failure.

Zelo took a few shaky steps back; he frowned as he rubbed the bitten spot with one hand, eyes cast down to the cement of the sidewalk.

“That hurt, you idiot,” he mumbled.  Yongguk stared at him and didn’t answer.  What had he done?  His entire programming was skewed.  The kiss was out of place - it didn’t belong in his database.  It had jumbled everything up.  It was a system expansion he didn’t have the base software for.  He had been trying to adapt and make it fit within all his other information, and in the process he had hurt Zelo.  Now he didn’t know what to do.

But it had felt good.  Incredibly, indescribably good.  And even though it had hurt the young master, Yongguk wanted to do it again.

“You said kisses do not hurt,” Yongguk finally managed to say.  He was not trying to accuse Zelo, but he was confused by the contradicting information.

“They don’t, but bites do!” Zelo continued to rub his neck.  “Yeesh.  I thought you knew at least that.”

Yongguk could physically feel his system churn as it tried to process all the new data.  Zelo was not acting like he had expected - his face was red, but he did not appear to be in pain.  Yongguk put a hand to the boy’s head to check his temperature.  He flinched away slightly, but the au paire was able to take a reading just from the brief contact.  Temperature of Choi, Zelo: 98.8 degrees F

Determining that it was not, in fact, the kiss that had caused the boy to cry out in pain, Yongguk took his face in both hands and tried to pull the boy’s lips back to his own.  But Zelo stopped him by grabbing his wrists and halting the motion.

“Yongguk, no!” he ordered, and Yongguk, though he did not approve of the decision, obeyed.  He dropped his hands and allowed Zelo to take a step back.

“You can’t do things like that in public,” Zelo told him, both expression and tone stern.

“Youngjae did,” Yongguk found himself saying sulkily before he could stop himself.

“Th-that was different!” Zelo stammered.  His face darkened in color and his dark eyes got wide.  Yongguk thought it was a very nice image to look at.  “That was totally different!”

Yongguk pondered this for a moment.  “Then… I can kiss you inside the house?” he asked.  The house was not a public place.

Zelo looked away quickly and went to pick up his things.  “Yes.  Well, I don’t know… maybe!”  He stood quickly and began to walk again, at a hurried pace.  “I’ll think about it!”

Yongguk took a few long, easy strides to catch up to the boy.  “What is the estimated time until you come to a decision?” he asked.

“I- I don’t know!” Zelo’s face, all the way up to the tips of his ears, was completely red.  Yongguk observed how a little black mark had appeared where he had bitten the boy.

“You are embarrassed,” he stated, regretting the action.  He hadn’t meant to embarrass the boy.  He hadn’t realized that kisses could be embarrassing.

“I’m not embarrassed…” Zelo protested, looking down.  Then he turned his head to look back up at Yongguk with an expression the au paire had never seen on him before.  “I’m just shy.”

Yongguk felt his entire system buzz.  This was strange.  This was very strange.  He had done all he could to adapt kisses to his programming, but he still felt that he wasn’t computing them correctly.

“I will kiss you again when we get home,” Yongguk announced.  It was the only solution.

Zelo’s eyes widened again.  “Y-you can’t!” he said quickly, shaking his head.  “My mom will kill us both if she sees!”

Yongguk raised one eyebrow.  “Then she must not see.”

Apparently unable to object to that statement, Zelo opened his mouth but then closed it again.

“Okay, fine, just… no more hickeys, got it?” Zelo bit his lip and looked away again.  It made Yongguk want to kiss him even more.  He wanted to kiss him until he couldn’t breathe, like last time.  He want to hold Zelo up against himself so tight that he couldn’t move.  He wanted Zelo to kiss him, too.

“What is a hickey?” he asked instead.

“N-Never mind!”

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I'm not entirely sure what that was but I kind of want to write more//