Sentimental Shower

#028

He couldn’t understand the mechanism of how he exchanged messages with his youngest sibling, the last specimen, Yoo-hyun.

He calmly examined his internal system.

‘If I could erase training results from the database, maybe other things are possible too.’

He hadn’t tried it before as there was no particular need. But it was worth a try.

Sitting upright in the chair, he closed his eyes and took slow, deep breaths.

What would humans see if they looked inside their own heads?

As an android, he thought the system he saw resembled the universe.

The data dotted against the completely black background looked like traces left by stars. At first glance, it seemed scattered randomly, but there was a certain order to its arrangement.

This visualization was probably a reflection of his mental image. After all, such specific visuals couldn’t exist in digitally recorded data. It seemed he was influenced by the astronomy books he had read.

Mr. Yoo walked through his database as if walking through space. The lights arranged in the dome-like black space were the elements that made up his being.

Some of them had lost their light and were glowing very faintly. He could easily guess the cause. It was malfunction.

His body wasn’t a finished product to begin with. Just like his brothers. It was like a prototype for completion.

To reduce costs, the creator used incomplete microchips when making Yoo Seong-woo’s body.

That was the cause of the malfunction.

Using the most important part of an android in an incomplete state, naturally, the body couldn’t be normal.

Looking at the condition, there were only initial symptoms, so it should be fine for a while. The question was how long until it reached the level requiring disposal.

‘I wonder if it’ll be okay for another 5 years.’

That’s being generous. But even that was just a guess; even he had no way of knowing how long this body would last.

Anyway, that wasn’t important right now. He came here for another purpose, so he needed to solve that first.

He concentrated among the stars. The lights slowly changed their arrangement, enveloping him as if responding to their owner.

Taking a deep breath and exhaling, he looked closely at the lights. No, perhaps it’s better to say he felt them. It was reading one by one which light was responsible for which function.

His head hurt every time he carefully checked each one. He also felt discomfort, as if something like chopsticks was stirring inside his head.

“Ugh…”

As he struggled, holding back nausea, to make matters worse, some lights even moved away as soon as he touched them. They didn’t actually move away, it must be that the data was difficult to access. For humans, it might be similar to repeatedly touching a part of the body they don’t want to be touched.

He took a deep breath. These are all things inside me anyway. If it’s possible to use functions that didn’t exist before, it must be easier to control existing functions at will.

Calming himself, he concentrated again. His body was soaked in light. The light swirled around him and remained on his body in a grid pattern. It was slowly absorbed just like that.

He concentrated, unaware of the passing time. How long had it been?

‘It worked.’

He finally achieved his goal. He had gained control over one function.

***

About three or four hours later, Yeon Tae-soo returned. He was smiling, but looked very tired.

“I had it handled as if he died in another gambling house. You shouldn’t get any calls about it, so don’t worry.”

He couldn’t ask what method was used. He noticed a faint mark on the sleeve of Yeon Tae-soo’s dark gray dress shirt. Seeing the suspicious mark that was either black or dark red, he felt uneasy.

“…I’m sorry.”

Those words came out first, before asking how or what he did. It was only right. However, Yeon Tae-soo didn’t seem pleased.

Yeon Tae-soo took off his jacket and hung it on the coat rack as if it were his own room, then pulled out a chair at the table and sat down. He suddenly realized how spacious this room was. A king-size bed, a table, two chairs. The plain wide walls probably had a TV that could appear, and the beige-toned rug was clean.

He hated this awkward situation of standing in a room that didn’t match Eden, indebted to Eden’s owner.

“I’d rather hear something else than that.”

He looked up at Yeon Tae-soo’s words. Something other than sorry…? Ah, he realized a beat late.

“…Thank you.”

Though dejected, he spoke as clearly as possible, and only then did a look of satisfaction appear on Yeon Tae-soo’s face.

“Don’t mention it.”

Feeling somewhat drained, Mr. Yoo sat in the chair opposite him. It was puzzling why he felt exhausted when Yeon Tae-soo was the one who had done all the work.

After taking a deep breath and exhaling, he voiced the question that had been troubling his mind the whole time he was alone.

“Why are you… doing this much for me?”

“I told you, I’m crazy about pretty things.”

Yeon Tae-soo’s answer was straightforward.

“It’s true. That’s all there is to it. Why is it so hard to believe?”

His face even looked somewhat wronged as he added those words.

“Well, I guess it is funny for a gangster to ask to be trusted.”

“That’s not it.”

“It’s not?”

A smile appeared on Yeon Tae-soo’s face. Mr. Yoo sensed danger in that smile. It wasn’t because he was an android that he sensed it.

The subject of the danger wasn’t him. It wasn’t that Yeon Tae-soo was dangerous, but that his own emotions, no, the reactions his machine brain was producing, were dangerous.

“…I trust you, Mr. Yeon.”

Though difficult to say, he meant it sincerely. He knew that he had to trust him to entrust his body, to be protected by him.

Yeon Tae-soo’s expression seemed unchanged at first glance, but conveniently, his system analyzed the expression for him. The word that appeared before his eyes was ‘joy’.

“I’m the one forcing debt on you. You’ll have to pay it all back to me.”

Yes, he was grateful that he put it this way, calling it a debt. Because once it’s paid back, that’s the end of it.

But what should he do about this feeling of wanting to rely on him just a little, just a little bit more?

“From before…”

His lips quivered before he painfully pushed out his voice.

“Many people have looked down on me. Especially men.”

After escaping from his creator, he couldn’t count how many times he had encountered them. Men trying to do something to his body.

“Some tried to rape me, some tried to sell me off somewhere.”

Once he started speaking, his voice flowed easily as if talking about someone else’s story.

“It was the first time I thought getting hit would be better. Fortunately, I was never fully violated, but…”

Yes, he was never fully violated. But he had countless experiences up to just before that point.

“I know that sexual violence is fundamentally more about hierarchy than gender. However… the ones who came at me, rather than that, they just…”

They seemed to want to hurt me.

He swallowed those words. Even saying that felt like exposing his vulnerabilities. And he was still uncomfortable, no, afraid of revealing his vulnerabilities.

The world he had run out into with nothing was always a battlefield. Flashy neon signs and outdated robots crawling on the ground like cockroaches. And his own body, worth less than those robots.

“…An abnormal number of people were drawn to me. Those kinds of humans.”

Thinking about it, it was strange. Everywhere he went, there were men trying to touch his body somehow or approaching him with sexual intentions.

He thought he would feel miserable after saying all this, but he felt relieved instead.

“I’ve often wondered why these things only happen to me. In fact, the reason is obvious. Looking weak, seemingly without backing, appearing easy to handle… Smelling like a weak person.”

It was just that he looked easy to take advantage of. If that’s a sin, then it’s a sin, and if that’s a reason, then it’s a reason.

“Still, it gets tiring.”

“If you’re human, you get tired. It’s natural.”

He paused at Yeon Tae-soo’s words, casually thrown out.

This person doesn’t even think I’m an android. In other words, it means I can gain his trust.

He hated himself for feeling relieved. Even wanting to live this badly might be a terrible error.

‘You’re the first human to show me this much kindness.’

He couldn’t utter the words that tickled the tip of his tongue. President Min and Old Man Chang are nice to him too, but not to the extent of taking such big risks.

“…If one’s entire life is an error, how do you think it would feel?”

It was a somewhat impulsive question. For someone who has lived at the top of the food chain among humans, it would be a question he couldn’t understand.

“I think I’d want to kill them all.”

He looked up at Yeon Tae-soo’s chilling answer.

“If you kill all those who made it that way, and all those who call it an error, then it’s no longer an error.”

Mr. Yoo, who had expected cliché and superficial comfort like “Why do you think it’s an error?” or “You can do well from now on,” gave a hollow laugh.

“Just tell me, I’ll kill them all for you.”

Even though he knew it was just words to entice him, he felt strangely excited. Why do you give hope to this bundle of errors?

He closed his eyes for a moment. Even behind his eyelids, the display was still functioning. An indication that his heart rate was rising filled one side of the screen. The display he saw with his eyes closed looked like an old CRT monitor due to the fluorescent font.

Even when he opened his eyes, Yeon Tae-soo was still looking at him. What form would his image take reflected in those blue prosthetic eyes?

A moment of silence was enough. To gather a bit more courage.

“Yoo Seong-woo.”

For once, he wasn’t afraid of Yeon Tae-soo’s two different colored eyes taking him in.

“That’s my name.”