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vampyrial · 2 months

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A World For Her Alone | My dreams, as unknowable to me as you

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17

cw (chapter specific): pregnancy and childbirth, infidelity, death, suicide, disassociation

summary: for a change of perspective, let's give voice to another, forgotten to a higher will. if it was only a dream, why did it feel so real?

word count: 3.6k

Reverie was a rare thing to be spoken aloud in the life of a knight. To dream greater, or even just different than one’s own position was one thing, to speak it was another. That was why when Felix awoke with a start, covered in sweat and panting, he said nothing to explain himself to his comrade across the room. That was why his comrade knew not to ask at all, pretending to still be asleep in bed.

He trembled in bed, frozen and curled into himself, longing for a moment. Just one moment to grab hold of the world gradually before the tumult of it hit him all at once again.

He did not receive it.

Felix dressed in the dark, his hands moving deftly even without his mind’s cooperation. His body had been trained into an automaton, he ought to have been more pleased with that than he was, it had saved him a few times before. But it did make the lingering, vague horror of his dreams that much more concrete. He was inside the dream, the dream inside himself and yet he could not remember what it was about. He could not draw a single image from this dream, though he’d had it several times over, he was sure. He remembered the familiar infantile feeling of vulnerability which he woke with each time. He woke each time as a newborn, grasping for sense of the earth. He woke only with a single memory, the feeling of grasping the pommel of his sword so tightly that its shape was impressed into his hand.

More oft in dreams did he wield his sword than in reality. He waited outside his lady’s door, his sword on his hip and his eyes routinely moving about the hall every few moments. The knight of an ordinary lady was not so valiant a title, he could admit, it was hardly a danger that most young knights wish to defend from. Even so, Felix took his position seriously. He held his position with as much preciseness as he had the very first day he’d been chosen. Sooner would he forget his mother’s name than he’d forget that day, he way his hands trembled when he took his lady’s hand to kiss. Her eyes looking down at him steadfastly. He thought she was so queenly then. He’d made the grievous mistake of telling one of the superior knights that he’d thought so and he’d been met with laughter and a biting jab. “The lady is no queen, if you ever live to set your sorry eyes on her majesty, you’ll look back at this moment and be embarrassed for comparing tavern ale to champagne.”

He’d been embarrassed for saying such a flowery thing. That was when he’d learned to hold his tongue around the older knights. Swarthy, they were, restless with the lives of relative inaction they led. As he grew into his new position, he came to reconcile with the fact that young knights came bright as the swords they swung and then sometimes decayed into what the elder knights were instead of aging into the kind of men he’d looked up to as a squire. It was no matter as long as they did their jobs, even if it did bother him. Despite his embarrassment, however, he still held to the sentiment. He didn’t need to set eyes on the queen, all the better that he didn’t. He wasn’t a knight for glittering gold armor, nor for illustrious titles, to him it was true that you were queen. He hadn’t meant it in terms of jewels, not even in beauty or wealth, though you had plenty of each. He had only meant that when his lips touched your skin and his eyes lifted to meet yours as he gave his oath– he’d felt that you were an ill-fated, gentle queen of old and he your nameless, honorless knight.

You came out of the bedroom on a wisp of spring laden air, dressed darkly in sanguine red. Poorly hidden behind your queenly mask, an air of jubilance. His eyes stayed on you, heedless of how he looked. He had been right to stare but at the time, he had not known it. He had not known it would be the last time he’d ever see you look so happy.

Lord Claude, always the enigma. Felix remembered the first time he’d guarded the door while the two of you spoke in the drawing room. The young master proved rather dull and dreary, in his opinion, but you were obviously enamored with him. He’d never seen a woman in love before you and he was certain he’d never again with how incomparably you wore the glow of love. It almost overshadowed the weakness that lay beneath, the rot beneath the bright red flesh of a ripened apple. That was why he stood at your side, so stupidly pleased and hopeful, despite his distaste. It was for you to have something of your own. The mansion and everything in it belonged to Lady Diana, but if you could become a marchioness, you would be your own. You would have escaped and taken refuge in a love you had always been worthy of. And surely the Lord Claude– much beloved by you, would reward your efforts twofold.

The more that he saw you give yourself away to be worthy of being a marchioness, the more he prayed. Later on, he would have assumed his role long enough to realize that though he was your knight, it was implicitly decided by the unspoken rules of decency in society that his role was to protect you from an outsider, a thief, a bandit. He was not to protect you from the Lord Claude. But that was not now, he was a green young knight yet, whose head still danced with fond thoughts of the muted glory in serving such a lady. Of the place he would take at your side as you managed to lift yourself to the position you deserved. So much hope had been leaned on the idea that your marriage to Claude would be your salvation that it was perhaps destined to fail. Too much hope had yet to do Felix any good at all.

Felix’s stomach churned when Claude reached over to brush a petal from Diana’s hair. The indignation of it was one thing, the guilt was another. He should have trusted Claude much less than you had, he realized. It was your prerogative to be romantic, his to be weary. Now, he was reeling with undue humiliation, unable to think of how to spare you this, all because he’d refused to see.

The decay from there fell especially quick to his eyes. There was no offsetting the fatigue in your features, the pain subtly adding an odd flinch to your otherwise graceful and measured gait. Each time Claude decided to grace the manor with his presence, you looked entirely drained. You looked stunned like he had been as a young squire returning to his quarters from a particularly mean spirited day of sword training. It was as though Claude had sunk his fangs into your skin with every word, seeking a boastful memory of the sanguine dress you’d worn when he’d first drawn the warmth from your skin.

Come the late night after that he had gone to Diana instead of visiting you at all, he crawled into bed eagerly, forgetting why he had dreaded sleep so to begin with. It is such a dangerous thing as a knight, to forget. You are full of spite and fear without target, the whole world an uncoordinated dance of precarious steps. You walk into traps of your own making and you do not realize because you have not learned to fear yourself properly.

The dream melded seamlessly with reality, never was it fanciful. It ended as it began, in feasibility. A dream had no master nor cunning, it simply was. Still, it felt as though this dream was predatory with the ability and thought to lure him carefully. This dream always began the same way, with him at the tea party, a memory which did not weather with time. This dream, if he were to indulge the belief of it being somewhat sentient, seemed to play with the fact that he thought of it every time he saw Claude’s face.

It was a clever thing.

This time something had been taken from you, thieved from your pockets rather than wrenched from your hands. The news of Diana’s poor health sent Claude scattering from the house as though driven out with a sword at his back. It was as though he saw no reason to hide his affair. Or rather, the urgency of Diana’s impending death made his love for her flare to heights that couldn’t be hidden. That he’d no will to hide. The latter was somehow more infuriating than anything. To think that a lord who had you and knew you, could truly love another far better.

While your husband rode for Diana, you sat in the drawing room waiting for a carriage to be prepared. Felix assumed there would be some manufactured problem with the carriage at Claude’s behest just so that he could have that much more time with the young lady. If such had truly been the case, he needn’t have bothered trying to delay you any further, his insolence had a more than serviceable job of it. By the time Felix entered the room to check on you, you were laid on the floor in a heap and barely breathing.

He could not keep grief from erupting from his lips when he saw you. He was at your side in an instant, scooping you into his arms as he would a child as he called to the servants outside to fetch the doctor. He brought you to bed, not being advised against moving you by the wide eyed servants he passed by and subconsciously thinking that it’d be best for you to wake up in bed rather than discarded carelessly in the drawing room where you still waited to receive your husband. In retrospect, as he stood outside your door with the doctor inside, he’d realized that the wariness of the servant might have been due more to his oddly frantic and personal grief on behalf of his lady rather than their master’s apathy. But in that moment he couldn’t have cared less for decorum, he almost hadn’t left the room when the doctor dismissed the servants. He always forgot himself when it came to you.

The doctor came out of the room looking troubled, he’d always been a somewhat fragile looking man as Felix saw him and it gave him the courage to pry. “Is the lady alright?” He asked quickly before the doctor could turn down the hall.

The man’s face sagged with immediate exhaustion at the question. “…Keep the mistress in your thoughts, she’s with child.”

Felix’s stomach dropped. His hopes were that you’d just fainted from stress and the only necessary treatment was enforced relaxation. From the way the doctor seemed to age in a moment just from him asking how you were, this child was not cause for much happiness.

In the months that followed, Felix kept his gaze trained on you steadily, not knowing what he should anticipate from your condition. He saw you in decline as Claude was nowhere to be found. In the early days of your pregnancy, he’d returned in a haste to get back to work. He’d forced you to reveal your pregnancy from the foyer because he wouldn’t spare a moment for you and after that, his reaction…he had the audacity to look bereaved. Bereaved that his wife had only done what was asked of her. What they were married for.

Felix felt such misery at your position. He felt the growing lethargy of your movements and the claustrophobia of being confined to your room. Through none of it could he comfort you and Claude was unwilling even though it was practically his only duty to you. What he felt was more pressing than that was being at Diana’s side as she slowly, much too slowly, faded away. But it was as though she never actually would. She was never going to die and return your husband to you. Even if she wilted mercifully, her ghost would haunt Claude who’d force everyone else to pretend that she still lived. Her memory would be the plague that replaced the one she enacted in life. He feared you’d never be free of this and it was a shameful feeling that he tried to shake off at every turn.

Days passed monotonously without him ever seeing you, the only sign of life being the servants who entered and exited your bedroom, bearing things like medicine and the scant amount of food you could keep down. Until one arrived with a note bearing Claude’s sigil.

Felix had been fool enough to believe this was some comfort to you, some belated and lazy excuse, no doubt but a comfort nonetheless. Something that would display the barest semblance of care for you might have put some manner of relief in your heart.

It was never to be.

Whatever Claude sent seemed to add ten sleepless to your body for how slowly, painstakingly you moved as if carefully dancing around the exhaustion would keep it from catching up to you. And you flinched as you moved down the stairs, the weight of the duty placed upon you threatened to drag you downward from your still somewhat graceful gait. It was a bleak sight to his eyes, the way your grace and the need for it had not faltered even now. It was as though just like the woman he loved so very much, he’d taken the ability to haunt a place while still living.

He summoned you to his side while you were like this, it made the already grating hatred he fostered inside become an unbearable hurt. A hopelessness that made him wish for Claude to die, to suffer, to hurt as you did. But he knew it wouldn’t be. He was born with too much to hurt like you did. When Felix offered you his hand, he ‘d tried to convey all that he felt for you as his lady in that gesture, for he could do nothing else to show his…what was it that he felt? Something more than affection, surely. What he wanted to convey was more than a knight was able to offer his lady. It was something less like what Claude might have felt for you and more than it, too. It was surpassing, a life’s wish.

He felt as though a conduit for your experience as the carriage rocked along, it was a curious thing. He felt hurt as you stepped into the carriage, as the horses began to race down the path. The pain was dynamic, flitting about his whole body and grief held fast to him.

Through dim halls he followed you to Diana’s room. The acrid, sickly sweet smell of medicine steeped in the air made him hold his breath as stood outside the door. He could not hear Diana’s voice well, it was a thin whisper, true to her condition. He could not even hear your own voice. What was occurring between you unsaid? Still, he found himself cooling down to a resoluteness as he observed the indignity of all you endured. Your parents had not even bothered to care that you were pregnant, your husband was horrified and probably sent for you in hopes of your miscarriage. Claude was a selfish, romantic fool. He’d surely have sacrificed legacy for the girl who laid in bed dying. So die. He thought. Die quickly, before Claude can have what he wants of my lady.

How easily such gruesome thoughts came to him did not inspire any fear nor shame. He was no longer a green knight.

Claude accosted you when you returned. Not even having yet sit with the thought that your husband had risked your health and safety for the whims of a dying, useless girl, he decided to grace you with anger. He demanded to know what you’d said to her. Of all things to say to the pregnant wife you left confined and isolated. His hand met the pommel of his sword with a loose grasp as he looked on with the thought that he’d meet his end right after he killed Claude if he were to move. He thought on his own death with pragmatism.

“That child you’re carrying…is it even mine?” Claude’s remark made him see red and yet he had to stay his hand. You fell to the floor in front of him as he scrambled forward to hold you. It was as though Claude had struck you with only his words and Felix had been helpless to stop him. All he’d been waiting for was a step in your direction. He would have unsheathed his sword in a second. He hadn’t expected this. Yet Claude’s cruelty had taken such a clever form. He hadn’t needed to lay a hand on you, something that would warrant Felix to step before you. He knew exactly how to harm you and his child.

He’d carried your body, soft and feverish, to your bedroom. Time and time again you had done this dance, it seemed. Only then did he become vaguely aware of how familiar it felt to pick you up from the floor.

The doctor came again and left without pretense of hope.

There had been nothing he could do to protect you from the harm Claude had done to you and Felix did believe that what your husband had told you was done for this very effect. If that weak, limp, useless lady could not live, neither could you and the child which might be a thorn in her side in her last days of living. He hated himself for this. He was a coward for not taking Claude’s head off the second he took his position against you that night. For letting him go back to Diana after what he’d said.

The next months passed in uncertainty. Though, in retrospect, Felix might have found that he was the only one uncertain of the outcome. Or at least, the only one pretending to be. He heard your cries through the door as you gave birth with much difficulty. He shifted his weight, chills running down his spine. The screams were bloodcurdling and at times, he accidentally let out a muffled sound of anguish behind his hand at them. It was a violent ordeal, he could smell the blood from outside the door and on the wind as servants whisked in and out of the room carrying towels heavy with blood.

At last, he heard the cry of a child but the room was lacking your voice which he awaited eagerly. He waited to find relief in your voice, cooing to the newborn but he never did. Finally, he simply entered the room, dispensing with propriety. What he saw began to dissolve the corners of reality, leaving him somewhat detached, watching from outside himself. The blood leaked out from under your body off of the sheets and down to the floor, you lay motionless in the center of it, your hair and nightgown wet with sweat.

“My lady?” He called, wishing he could steal the foolish words back as soon as they came out.

“The madame has passed,” the doctor said, wiping the blood from his hands with a blank look on his face as the midwives about him tended to the child and began to discard the ruined towels.

He needed nothing more for the world to turn to seafoam beneath him.

The next time he resurfaced, he didn’t even know what day it was, what he had been in the middle of doing. He only knew he’d been outside your door though you were probably hours dead. A dog at his master’s feet. He’d gone feral, ready to tear the flesh from Claude’s body in a moment’s notice, he took his sword in hand hastily. Somehow, he knew that Claude was inside though he could not remember seeing him enter. It was strange, as though the integrity of reality was dissolving with each blink.

He entered the room without tact or stealth, his singular goal to kill the man who had harmed you so. Even if it wouldn’t bring you back, there was a sense of desperation to the act, as though you could benefit from his act of retribution. But when he entered the room, which seemed desaturated and alive, moving with each breath of his— he found Claude in a pool of blood, his and your own, next to the bed. The sight enraged him so much, the audacity of it, the strange juxtaposition of his death here and his actions before. The stolen chance of bringing you vengeance turned the shards of glass from his shattered persona of knighthood turned inward, bleeding only him.

He could only stare at the hateful scene before him with grief before him as something drew him outward further, the horror of the world becoming mush around him, crumbling in on itself. It happened quickly, that he was drawn from what he believed was his body. The transition was seamless and sudden.

He startled awake. The darkness of his room seeming like a void, an end, for a moment before he remembered himself. It was slowly that he realized he’d been consumed by a dream, that all the grief he’d woken with was not real. The slurry of memories running through his mind melted together, evaporated as he tried to collect them. Dread settled deep in his stomach even as his false reality turned to dust in his hands.

He was left only with the hollow feeling, that of a horror endured and buried.

tags: @kage-tobiuo @kreishin @rosephantomhive @yeahdrarry @splaterparty0-0 @dear-dairiess @qluvrv @hafsuhhh @eissaaaa @ayolk @doan-19 @fourcefulcupid @ariachaos @cerisearan @irisspade @yaesflorist @jcrml @xiaosprettygf @yevenly @amaris08atoshi012022 @obsessed-with-a-fictional-man @softbummiee @cassanderasblog @waka-babe @bananatwirl@s1mp69 @mitsuyamistress @hottiewifeyyyy @reiko69 @syyyy4ever @pinkpastel-l @dododododooosworld @gwyneveire @mvoonxlightv @noisyenthusiastface @coldpeachkitten @brightykitten @worstliving @kailyan

#claude x reader #wmmap x reader #claude de alger x reader #claude de alger obelia x reader

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lovelyhan · 1 year

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— daylight ⟢

when hoshi first opened his eyes, the singular impulse hard-wired into his circuitry is to dance. a performer in every sense of the word, he simply finds another stage to set foot on in the planet of salax after the escape. people never overstay their welcome here, but he unexpectedly meets you—a mechanic born and raised in a place where no one deigns to linger for too long.

★ FEATURING; soonyoung x reader

★ WORD COUNT; 9k words

★ TAGS; automaton!hoshi, mechanic!reader, a bunch of stray kids members make appearances bc HA!, mentions of sex work, mutual pining? angst, smut (MINORS DNI)

★ WARNINGS; implied dubious consent (with hoshi and a character that isn't the mc), mentions of terminal illnesses and surgeries

★ NOTES; fun fact! this collab was 9 months in the making and i am cramming this on the very last day of my extension :D very unprofessional of me, but here it is! p.s. little side note that the chan that's constantly mentioned in the fic is bang chan, not lee chan!

this is part of @idyllic-ghost's svt sci-fi collab!

★ SMUT TAGS; robot sex, unprotected sex, first time together, they're just so desperate for each other yk

★ PERMANENT TAGLIST; @cheolhub - @pretty-trustme - @just-here-to-read-01 - @idkmelkro - @dejavernon - @venusrae - @jyiiscool - @jiniesclub - @junhui-recs - @bldelaine - @featmia - @fruitzcup - @hoeforhao - @candidupped - @billboard-singer - @caratochan - @novalpha - @dahliatopia - @0717luv - @shiveringgaze - @toruro - @mixling-blog - @minnie-mouser22 - @homerunhansol - @mirtaspace - @ti--red - @zzucculent - @woozarts - @rubyreduji - @mozellerra - @lllucere - @cheolzip - @jjjzzzz - @lissiesykes - @dearjeonwonwoo - @meowmeowminnie - @colored-confetti - @partiallyinfluencial - @speaknowlwt - @flwrshwa - @lilylikesthat - @aurorahongg - @whippedforjihoon - @todorokiskitten - @immabecreepin - @98-0603 - @peachhiz - @dkswife

★ SOONYOUNG TAGLIST; @ak6ko - @nikkell - @yoonzinoooo

100 years ago it was thought that the Earth, as we know it, would disintegrate. That the sun would implode and leave everything in darkness. Miraculously, it didn’t. Due to some external force, human scientists still haven’t agreed upon what it exactly was, none of the planets in our former solar system were ever destroyed.

The Earth, along with the other planets, were pushed away from each other, and ended up in different parts of the universe. Earth just happened to come to a solar system with alien life. At first, we were cautious, and people were prepared to fight.

However, the aliens were welcoming of our planet. Those of us who didn’t die from ‘The Great Journey’ or from trying to fight the aliens, were welcomed into the new solar system.

Soon enough, we had integrated completely, and we received materials and assistance from our sister-planets in exchange for human labor. What humans knew of technology was very limited, but with the resources of the aliens we created artificial life forms. We named these robots Automatons, and they served as workers when humans couldn’t.

Eventually, there was no need for human labor at all. To pay back for the help the aliens gave us, we used Automatons. With the extensive development of these robots, we eventually managed to create artificial sentient life. These Automatons were human-like in looks and had human consciousness, but they could not bleed and were stronger than we ever could be.

At the present time, there are even different levels of Automatons. Level 3 robots are the workers, level 2 robots are the caretakers, and level 1 robots are the celebrities—

“That’s enough telly for one day, don’tcha think?”

A frown tugs at your lips when you hear the familiar voice of your next-door neighbor who also makes a living out of trading tech junk in exchange for money. Han Jisung is a bit of an oddball—even by your planet’s standards, and everyone knows how strange the dwellers of Salax could be. If he was on Earth, he would’ve been ostracized as a complete loon, but unfortunately the stack of television monitors right outside his shop is your only source of entertainment these days.

(Which might sound preposterous to some, since Salax is often dubbed as the planet of entertainment. Just not the kind you’re looking for.)

“Why are you even watching a documentary that’s nearly a decade old?” you huff, clutching a bag of tools you bought from the other side of town closer to your chest. “I thought you didn’t give a shit about Automaton celebrities—that Chan’s dancer trinity could outperform any machine?”

“Now, Giz, no need to be so stingy,” Jisung chuckles and your eye twitches at the condescending nickname. “You know that's not why I’m watching this old thing.”

As if on cue, the only working screen in the sea of television static before you flickers from a scene of breathtaking idol performances to a closeup on a familiar Automaton who’s been burning up the stage since he first opened his eyes.

“Hoshi looked so sparkly when he debuted,” Jisung comments as the documentary continues to play. “Actually, they all did. Makes me wonder why those idols thought it’d be a good idea to break out of their facilities. Weren’t they treated like royalty back on Earth? What’s he doing in a dump like this?”

“Jisung,” you sigh. “Why’d you ask me to come here again?”

“Oh. Right. I'll bring him into your lab, Giz.”

He calls you Giz because you’re known around these parts as someone who can fix any gadget and gizmo; every robot and Automaton that’s dropped into your care. It just so happens that, with the nature of his business, Jisung is the one who typically directs potential customers your way.

Which is what he’s doing right now.

“Didn’t he already come in here last week? And the week before that?” Your neighbor grumbles as he helps your mutual friend Minho heft a powered down Automaton on the table in your lab. “It was Hyunjin who brought him the first time. Then Felix. Now you?”

“He’s a bot, what’d you expect?” Minho huffs. “They break down every now and again.”

“You break down every now and again too, but you don’t visit the doctor every week, no?” Jisung quips. “Idol bots really have no business wanderin’ into the galaxy’s red light district when they can’t handle the heat.”

“Jisung, shut up,” you apprehend him sharply, all while getting to work on the Automaton lying on your work table. “I can’t fix anything when you’re running your mouth too close to my ear.”

Your neighbor simply chuckles before patting Minho on the back. “Oh, yeah. You’ve gotta be in your handywoman element and everything. Well, Minho and I are gonna pop open some cold ones from your fridge—”

“No.

“—from my fridge while you work on that dying star over there,” Jisung makes it a point to cast the same robot he’d just been watching a documentary of a pitiful glance. “Seriously though, won’t Chan-hyung just consider selling him to me? Bet this guy’s parts would make a great fortune in the black market.”

“And how are you going to explain that you managed to turn up Hoshi of 53V3NT33N’s body parts without getting arrested?” Minho barks before yanking Jisung by the ear to the entrance of your lab. “Sorry about him, Y/N. He must be a pain in the ass to have as a neighbor.”

"You're a pain in the ass for constantly getting me to fix this guy, too,” you mumble as you start to unbutton Hoshi’s shirt to access the panel concealing the circuitry panel underneath his chest. “I’m all for saving what can still be saved, but maybe Jisung is onto something. Why aren’t you guys just chopping up his parts if he breaks down this often?”

Jisung nods with a huff. “Can’t be good for business even if he used to be a famous idol, that’s for sure.”

The lab is silent apart from the whir of the machines mounted on your walls, and it’s this sullen atmosphere that makes Minho’s reply have all the more weight to it.

“You guys aren’t dancers. You wouldn’t be able to understand.”

The first time you met rogue idol Automaton Hoshi in his titanium-clad glory was during a rare night when Jisung coaxed you out of your lab to "have real fun for once". Your neighbor is easily one of the most overbearing people you know, so you simply tagged along for the sake of getting him to shut up more than anything else.

But when he droned on and on about this new recruit Minho managed to scour off the streets, you never expected that Jisung would be talking about a bot and not some fledgling dancer with little to his name.

Well, in retrospect, Hoshi is a dancer—a performer, even. Despite his group's intergalactic status as outlaws because of the simultaneous escape stunt they pulled several months ago, not a single soul in Salax wished to report his whereabouts to the concerned authorities.

Where the other bots from 53V3NT33N are, you haven't the slightest clue, but if your planet's natives have widely accepted Hoshi's presence even if he's been here for a month at most, who are you to dictate otherwise?

Passionate. That's the best word you can use to describe the way he dances. All the movements that his body makes are calculated, purposeful. Each roll of his hips, each snap of his limbs, every memorable expression that colors his face—the intensity of Hoshi's performance all bleeds into his passion for the art of dance.

In your many years of tending and tinkering with machines, this is probably the first time you wondered if a bot's creator infused part of his soul into the code. You know of a few Automatons that are being used as entertainers and even escorts for the lecherous visitors of Salax, yet none of them come as close to being human as Hoshi is in your book.

But on that same night, you managed to witness the polar end of the spectrum. The one where Hoshi's fiery passion crumbled into crippling anxiety.

Automaton malfunctions aren't an uncommon occurrence here. The reason why not many Level 1 bots ever set foot on Salax is because the planet's electromagnetic fields mess with their delicate circuitry and sometimes even tamper with their code.

These Automatons are celebrities—meaning their parts are made out of sleek material to allow ease of movement and rid them of the rigid and bulky framework of infernal bots. But because of the flimsy hardware coupled with the harsh environment, you're not surprised to see an Automaton as intricately crafted as Hoshi break down in the middle of a performance.

He's a mess. The practiced choreography was seemingly wiped out of his programming as he convulsed on-stage, sparks flitting from the seams of his joints. The bar’s manager, Chan, was quick to bark out orders to bring Hoshi off the platform and just let the other dancers cover the rest of the routine.

You thought the immediate recall of an obviously defected Automaton would mean he was done for. But then again, Salax is a place with little resources to burn. As long as a bot can still do its job, the owner will have it fixed time and time again until its artificial nervous system shuts down for good.

That’s how Hoshi ended up in your lab the first time.

There’s a childlike curiosity in his gaze when he wakes up after you check if all his wires are in place and if his code remains uncorrupted. It almost feels like seeing a baby open its eyes for the first time, but you know better than to associate human traits with something that’s anything but.

“Horanghae,” Hoshi says without any real context as he bares his fingers at you, while Hyunjin, the dancer who brought him here alongside Jisung, groans in contempt.

“That’s the first thing he said when Chan-hyung booted him up too,” he sighs. “Is it like some starting screen sound effect or something? What does that even mean?”

As things stand, you don’t know either. But seeing that Hoshi isn’t glitching anymore makes a wave of relief wash over you in a rather unexpected way. While it isn’t the first time you’ve had to fix a humanoid robot, you don’t work much on machines that grin at you so wide, their eyes disappear.

Then again, there’s always room for firsts.

“Why’d you choose to go here after you escaped?”

You chose to ask Hoshi the question that’s been weighing on your mind despite having little to no reassurance of the ingenuity of his answer. You’re aware that though Automatons—especially Level 1’s—are sentient, you have zero background on their psychological makeup, the thought process behind their decisions, everything but the baseline components of their hardware.

Hoshi hums for a moment, wincing when you accidentally nick one of the wires directly connected to the nerves on his thigh. “I dunno. I just wanted to dance.”

“Hm. And you thought you’d be able to do that here?”

He nods as if it was a practiced response. Maybe it is. “Yeah. My old mechanic told me Salax is a place where all sorts of dancers flock together. I kinda wanted to go with Wonwoo when we all escaped, but…I wanted to dance even more.”

Whoever that mechanic was, they must’ve left out the part where your home planet is quite literally a den for one’s deepest, darkest desires. Dancers at clubs are just merely scratching the tip of the iceberg. The depravity of Salax’s denizens and visitors alike goes even further than that, but you suppose it’s not the right time to disillusion such an innocent bot so early in his new career.

After all, Chan’s club might be like any other salacious establishment out there, but from what you know about him through Minho and Jisung, he isn’t the type to just throw a clueless Automaton into becoming a nightly escort. You’ll let Hoshi live out his dream to keep dancing on whatever stage he sets his eyes on—even if that means he’ll start frequenting your lab for regular maintenance checkups.

“Where’s Jisung?”

The question surprises you a little when Hoshi articulates it while you’re in the middle of tidying up your work table. Normally, he’d be out of the lab once you were done and whichever human dancer is chaperoning him for the day would pay for the services you rendered and they’d be on their merry way back to the main district.

It’s completely out of character for him to ask questions. You weren’t even aware that he knew Jisung’s name, which makes you wonder…

Does he know yours? You’ve never really introduced yourself to the machines you end up tinkering with on your work table.

Choosing not to dwell on it, you instead respond with, “Jisung is…at the hospital. He goes there every weekend.”

“Hospital,” Hoshi repeats the word as if it was something he’s only hearing about the first time. “My mechanic had to go to the hospital because she was sick one time. I didn’t see her for a while. Will Jisung be okay? Why is he in the hospital?”

You didn’t think sentient robots would have such a complex sense of self that they’re actually capable of empathy. It makes you stare at Hoshi, who’s staring back at you with a look asking for confirmation, and the unreadable expression on your face melts into soft laughter.

Your reaction, however, confuses the Automaton a little. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. It’s just amusing for me that you care that much about someone who’s constantly threatening to disassemble your parts and sell them in the intergalactic black market.”

“Well, if he needs them, I don’t mind.”

“If you let Jisung do that, you wouldn’t be able to dance anymore,” you point out before locking your toolbox, casting him a pointed look. “Will you really be alright with that? Not being able to do the thing that brought you here in the first place?”

Hoshi’s face scrunches up for a moment—as if he’s taking his time to actually think about his answer. Another speck of amusement prickles your chest. He has such human mannerisms that if you didn’t constantly see what’s underneath the clothes the bar provides him with, you never would’ve thought he was a bot.

“It would suck, but… Automatons were made to serve the humans around us, weren’t we?” he wonders out loud. “If my purpose is to get chopped up for parts, then I don’t really have any qualms with that.”

“Your purpose was to entertain millions of people across the galaxy as an idol group,” you deadpan. “But here you are in Salax, light years away from the rest of your members. You can cut the moral bullshit, Hoshi. We’re all selfish degenerates here anyway.”

For the first time, his expression twists into a frown. “I’m afraid I don’t understand…?”

“You don’t have to. It’s not that much of a big deal.” You shake your head and at the same time, you hear the sound of someone rapping their knuckles on the door to your lab. “Oh, Felix is already here. Good luck with tonight’s show.”

“You didn’t answer me.”

You can almost hear the pout in Hoshi’s voice, prompting you to cast him a sidelong glance. “Answer what?”

“Why is Jisung in the hospital?”

You let out your umpteenth sigh of the evening, opening the door to your lab to reveal a dressed-to-kill Felix that smiles and waves at the two of you.

“His older brother is sick and Jisung always goes to the hospital to take care of him on weekends,” you explain as simply as you could. “Does that finally sate your curiosity?”

It takes him a few moments to process the information he’d just been told, but Hoshi eventually breaks into that familiar, eye-crinkling grin—clearly satisfied with your answer.

“It did. Thank you, Giz.”

Well, that’s not quite your name, but you suppose it’ll do.

For Hoshi’s next checkup, you immediately sense that something’s amiss.

Typically, the Automaton waltzes into your lab and hefts himself on your work table before you can even get a chance to say hello to both him and his assigned chaperone. Today, it’s Minho but unlike last week’s visit, Jisung is here to lighten up the atmosphere in his usual Jisung fashion.

Though it’s not enough to conceal the obvious discombobulation your patient is currently experiencing.

“You two,” you call out, referring to the only other humans inside the lab. “Can you step out for a while? I’m gonna talk to Hoshi.”

Jisung, of course, is quick to initiate his rapid-fire questions. “What? Why would you need some alone time with a sexy bot, Giz? You’re not becoming one of those deranged mechanics who gets off with their Automatons, right?”

“Quit yapping and just let her do her job,” Minho scolds before dragging Jisung out of the lab by the wrist. But he doesn’t leave before yelling over his shoulder. “Just call us when you’re done!”

When Minho pulls the door shut and the automatic locks come into place, you turn to Hoshi with an inquisitive look.

“What happened?”

The question is met with a wince—as if you took out a cigarette and burned his silicone skin with the smoldering edge. Hoshi makes it a point to avoid your eyes, which only further confirms your theory that something is most definitely up.

“I…had my first client the other day.”

Ah.

While you haven’t personally dabbled in the services being offered by the red light district, you’ve been friends with Minho long enough to pick up on the basics. With how much attention Hoshi has been garnering for himself, it was only a matter of time before Chan would let him entertain their club’s regulars in a way that he was probably never taught as an idol.

After all, Level 1s are considered the purest of all the Automaton classes. You’ve always wondered what would happen if they were exposed to activities of the sexual kind, but from the uneasy look on Hoshi’s face, you’re afraid it might not have been a great first time.

“Do you…want to talk about it?”

It feels a little silly, playing therapist for a literal machine. But the longer you serve as Hoshi’s regular mechanic here on Salax, the more you realize that things would be less stressful if you treated him just like you would treat any other human being out there.

He’s an Automaton—a robot—but because of the groundbreaking discovery of their ability to become sentient several decades ago, you’re more than inclined to hear him out.

“The other dancers helped me prepare. Chan told me time and time again that I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t want to but…” He starts, voice coming out softer than you’re used to—more reserved. “I wanted to. I wanted to be of use to them. I knew that lots of our customers wished for me to become their escort, so I just repaid Chan’s kindness by doing my job.”

Your lips tug into a grimace. “You don’t look very pleased with the outcome though.”

Hoshi purses his lips and that alone is already an answer.

You don’t pester him any further than that. Instead, you quietly instruct him to take off his shirt and lie on the table like he always does. Hoshi complies surprisingly quickly—following your orders with clockwork precision. He’s in position merely ten seconds after you gave the word.

When you perform your regular examination beneath his chest plate, nothing seems out of turn. Part of you wants to check the circuitry inside his head just to make sure he’s doing alright up there. It’s been a while since Hoshi has been brought here because of a breakdown, so you haven’t bothered inspecting the wires beneath his artificial skull. You wonder if he even wants to—

“It felt good,” your patient tells you all of a sudden, nearly making you drop the tools you’re using to poke around inside his chest cavity. “I didn’t think it was possible for me to even feel that way, but I did.”

Composing yourself, you manage a small nod. “Okay. Did you enjoy it at least?”

“Yeah.”

“Would you want to do it again?”

“...With her? Not really.”

Hoshi falls silent for the next few minutes once more, which affords you all the silence you need to concentrate on what you’re doing. After closing his chest panel and lubricating the screws on his external joints, he was more or less in the clear. But from the way his uncharacteristic silence still persists, you know that he still has a couple more things on his mind.

“I didn’t like the way she said my name.”

You glance at Hoshi with a quizzical look, implicitly asking him to elaborate, which he thankfully does in a heartbeat.

“When I was still with the rest of 53V3NT33N, the fans would call out my name and it always felt good. It felt euphoric, even,” he reminisces as he sits up on the table, dark eyes trained on the tiled floor. “But with my client…it was the first time I felt unnerved hearing it come from another person’s mouth. It’s like—like she only saw me as a thing to enjoy. Not someone she loves, like our fans love me.”

The honesty in his words makes your heart sink.

Turns out, ridding an Automaton of its figurative innocence isn’t so different from that of a real person. The glittering curiosity that’s always been present in Hoshi’s eyes is nowhere to be found and you feel a deep-seated anger pooling in the pit of your stomach at the knowledge.

“Can you give me a new one?”

Blinking the irritation out of your eyes, you stare at him, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“A new name,” Hoshi says softly. “I never really liked the name Hoshi. Our management just thought it would make for good business to base my image around tigers. What’s more is that this city has already tainted it for me.”

The bitter laugh that follows his words has your chest aching with an emotion you can’t name. When was the last time you became this sad on a machine’s behalf, you wonder…

“Are you sure?” you murmur. “I’m not your boss or anything. If there’s anyone who has the right to give you a name, wouldn’t it be Chan?”

Hoshi shakes his head. “No. I want it to be you.”

Humans are already hard to figure out, but with each session you share with Hoshi, you learn that Automatons are even more so. He stares at you with such intense desperation in his eyes that you find it difficult to deny him. So, with a deep breath, you say the first name that pops into your head.

“How about...Soonyoung,” you breathe. “You are powerful because of your innocence and glory combined. It’s obvious in how you haven’t tapped out because of that less-than-stellar time with your first client.”

“Soonyoung…” he whispers under his breath, as if testing how the syllables would taste in his mouth. When the corners of his lips twitch into a smile, you know you’ve struck gold. “Did you just invent what the name means or…?”

“That’s for me to keep and for you to find out.” You shrug. “Well? Do you like your new name?”

“It’s not just my name. It’s yours, too.”

“...That doesn’t really make a lot of sense.”

Soonyoung laughs. “You’re the one who gave it to me. So it belongs to you, too.”

I belong to you too, you can almost hear him say, but erase the idea from your brain before you can get any more silly thoughts.

“Well, I think we should go. My sensors tell me that someone is very pissed off on the other side and I’m guessing that Jisung must’ve said something that annoyed Minho again.”

“For a robot, you’re pretty adept at picking up on human emotions,” you point out teasingly.

“Of course I am. I always want to appeal to the emotions of those around me, Y/N. Why do you think I dance my heart out every time I’m in the club?”

Oh.

He does know your name after all.

That evening, you decided to tag along with the boys to the club—grabbing a table for Jisung and yourself as you watched tonight’s lineup of performers. Soonyoung, with his newfound confidence thanks to the name you bestowed upon him, looks just as breathtaking as he was in the prime of his idol years. You wouldn’t have thought he’d just had an unsavory encounter with a client with how brightly he grins at the audience.

He reminds you a little of daylight breaking through the horizon minutes after dawn—almost blinding in his brilliance, but too precious for you to miss out on.

“What’re you doing?”

Soonyoung sounds a little annoyed when he glances over his shoulder. Your most loyal patient came in alone for the first time in months for his weekly maintenance check-up, but for some reason, his trusted mechanic is much more interested in something else.

You’re still tinkering with a portable hologram projector that wandered into Jisung’s weekly junk stash—one that your neighbor gave to you as a little plaything that’s been taking up most of your morning trying to figure out.

“Give me a second,” you grumble as you attempt to salvage the inner workings of the worn out thing with a soldering iron. “I’ve only read about these things in books, and my old mentor said they usually contain the final messages of a ship captain whose spacecraft is about to get destroyed.”

“That’s weirdly specific of you, don’t you think?” Soonyoung huffs. “Come on. I’ve got a client to meet in two hours and Hyunjin’s being really annoying with this new routine he came up with. I need to go back and practice as soon as I’m done here.”

You let out a quiet laugh before giving up on the hologram projector. “Oh? Time sure flies, doesn’t it? I could’ve sworn you hated taking up clients just yesterday.”

He whines. “It’s been half a year since I started doing that!”

“Like I said—time flies!”

Your sessions have grown shorter and shorter with each passing week. Every time you fine-tune Soonyoung’s circuitry, you observe that he’s become less prone to internal malfunctions. You didn’t think it was possible for a Level 1 Automaton to fully adapt to the frequency of the electromagnetic waves in Salax, but Soonyoung has surprised you time and time again.

Now, he can go on for weeks without powering down to regain his energy. He’s as good as any dancer—both human and robot—can be, and you honestly consider telling him that he doesn’t really have to come in for his weekly check-ups anymore.

Soonyoung, however, doesn’t seem thrilled with the news.

“What do you mean I don’t have to come here anymore?” He pouts.

“There’s nothing left for me to check, big guy,” you sigh as you seal his chest panel back up. “You’ve been stable for months now. I don’t even charge Chan for your check-ups anymore since everything is relatively normal.”

“But if I don’t get any check-ups, can I still come here?”

You make a face at him. “What for?”

“To hang out! Minho and Jisung do it all the time. Although Jisung always barges into the club uninvited and we have to stop Minho from beating him up…”

His invite perplexes you more than it flatters you because… You’ve never encountered any cases where an Automaton would willingly go out of its way to spend time with a human that doesn’t hold any sort of authority over it.

They’re sentient, yes, but at the end of the day, those emotions that others trick themselves into believing that bots can feel are just a clever arrangement of ones and zeros. It’s easy to lose oneself into one’s own delusions when in need of a little company, but you know that you aren’t that desperate for companionship.

It’s always just been you and the bots and other machines you fix for a living. Well, maybe Minho and Jisung when they’re not busy trying to piss each other off. You don’t need to hang out with Soonyoung.

And yet…

“Fine,” you relent with little resistance, feigning nonchalance by fluttering back to the projector you’ve been trying to salvage. “Just don’t make too much of a racket or I’ll kick you out.”

Soonyoung beams at your agreement, tugging his shirt back on before shuffling towards you and embracing you from behind. The suddenness of the gesture obviously catches you by surprise. You nearly drop the portable holo projector, but Soonyoung’s reaction time is quite phenomenal.

“Hey, don’t drop it. It’s already been through a lot.”

Still unnerved by the feel of his beefy, synthetic arms wrapped around your frame, you glance at him warily. “You talk like it’s some sentient creature.”

“It is! Well, by some degree, I guess,” Soonyoung chuckles before flipping the thing over in his hand. “Machines are just like people too. If you listen close enough, you can hear what they want to tell you.”

“Uh-huh,” you drawl before disentangling yourself from his embrace before you could implode from embarrassment. If he notices just how flustered you are, he doesn’t show it. “What’s this thing trying to tell you then?”

“Its creator hid the switch inside the motherboard, but you’re damaging it with a soldering iron. You just need to look for it harder.” Soonyoung hands the gadget back to you with a warm smile. “Well, I’ve gotta go now. Hopefully, when I go hang out with you, that thing will already be fixed.”

Soonyoung prances out of the lab with a skip to his step before you can even give your own input. When you hear the front door of your house click shut, you grab your toolbox with a withering sigh before trying a different approach to your current predicament.

To your chagrin, it’s just as Soonyoung said—the switch was hidden somewhere beneath the motherboard and you were able to witness a space cadet’s last five minutes of life.

He talked about how much he missed home, how he wished he just died on Earth instead of being launched into space after the implosion of the sun of the first solar system. Then, he left a message for a woman that used to be his childhood sweetheart—saying that it was only a matter of time before they were reunited. Before you can glean any more information about the cadet, the feed was cut off and hologram flickered out.

The entire experience leaves you dumbfounded for about five minutes. A hologram from over a hundred years ago just wound up in Jisung’s junk stash. What are the odds?

“Giz? Are you in here?”

Speaking of Jisung, the devil himself weasels his way into your lab just when you’re done tidying up your little experiment for today. You’re just about to tell him what you saw in the holo projector, but the look on his face makes you pause.

The cheerful, pain-in-the-ass neighbor of yours seems a little…exhausted. There are dark circles beneath his eyes, and his cheeks look a bit thinner than you remember. Jisung is the kind of person that rarely lets the things that bother him show on his face, so you’re a little concerned to see him in such a state right now.

“Jisung, what’s wrong?”

He doesn’t even hesitate. “It’s Jieun… He’s—He needs a heart transplant. If he doesn’t get a replacement in eight weeks, he’ll die. I can’t handle that, Y/N. I can’t lose him. He’s the only family I’ve got left…”

You panic internally somewhat when Jisung starts rambling in front of you, tears streaking his face as the man who you thought was always a step ahead of everybody starts to crumble before you. You’re not expert in consoling people who direly need it, but you’re at least rational enough to lead him out of your stuffy lab and back to the comfort of your living room.

There, you give Jisung a glass of water and several minutes to catch his breath.

Once he calms down, he speaks.

“I’ve already outsourced a compatible donor,” he murmurs. “It should all be in the clear now, but the problem right now is money. The shitty healthcare system on this planet won’t greenlight any transplants unless everything is paid in full. I-I can’t come up with the money they want from me in less than two months.”

Fuck. He’s in a tight spot then. “Oh, Jisung…”

“But I’ve thought of a way that might work if you help me.”

You flash him a confused look. “What do you mean?”

Jisung’s throat bobs before letting out a shuddering breath. You only notice how bloodshot his eyes are when he leans closer to tell you about his so-called plan.

“Some intergalactic guards have been spotted around the main district lately. Word from the street is that they’re still searching for the other members of that idol group that escaped Earth and that a generous reward would be given to everyone who’ll cooperate,” he whispers conspiratorially, and from those few sentences alone, you’re already dreading what he’s planning. “If I lead them to Hoshi, I should be able to raise enough money for Jieun’s surgery. Enough that I can even split the reward between the two of us!”

“No,” you tell him sharply. “You’re not going to sell out Soo—Hoshi like that. He practically lives here already.”

“He’s just a fucking bot, Giz,” Jisung snaps. “The worst they’ll do if they catch him is give him time out for a few days until he’s back to being the idol that everyone knows and loves. If I don’t get the money I need for my brother’s transplant, he’s going to die.”

You hold Jisung’s intense stare despite not having a good enough comeback. He’s right. Soonyoung isn’t even supposed to be here at all. And if surrendering him to the cops meant Jisung would have the means to help his brother survive, the only logical thing to do is give him a hand.

But then you remember the way Soonyoung’s eyes disappear behind the widest of grins whenever he’s enjoying himself. How he trusted you enough to confide in his troubles during his first client booking, the way his eyes sparkled when you first called him Soonyoung—

It’s not just my name. It’s yours, too.

“I can’t help you, Jisung,” you murmur. “If you’re going to go about the situation like this, I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

Your neighbor and long-time friend nods once, twice before getting up from your couch. Guilt bites into your chest as Jisung leads himself to the front door, and you could’ve sworn your heart sank into your stomach when he closes it behind him.

In the ear-splitting silence, you wonder if there’s any way to save someone without sacrificing anybody else.

While it’s true that you’ve never taken up the type of entertainment that Salax is famous for, that doesn’t mean you’re completely unaware of what goes on during those sorts of transactions.

Despite himself, Minho can be a bit of a chatterbox especially when he’s had one drink too many. There was a time when he told you about how he was booked for the night by a married couple and they edged him until he was in tears on the mattress. Then, he proceeded to share that he was quite literally incapacitated for days because the wife had exceptional skill with her strap-ons.

You don’t really hear these kinds of stories from Soonyoung. The possible reasons are 1.) Automatons don’t have a sense of gossip and see no benefit in sharing the gritty details of their sex lives, and 2.) He just doesn’t see you as someone worth telling said gritty details about.

The second possibility gnaws at you more than it should. You don’t really care about Soonyoung’s nightly escapades. You’re just his mechanic. As long as he doesn’t fuck himself up like he used to when he first started working at the club, you’ll have no complaints.

But after a late-night grocery store run, you unknowingly run into Soonyoung and someone who you presume to be one of his clients. They’re right outside the building of Chan’s club, and Soonyoung is obviously romancing the woman who paid for his company that night by caging her against the wall, whispering something in her ear with a sordid smirk.

You’ve never seen him like this. Whenever he’s with you, Soonyoung’s all too-wide smiles and unprovoked hugs. The more he hangs out with you during his free time, the more difficult it is for you to picture him as that seductive dancer that has charmed everyone who’s anyone on Salax.

Part of you—an irrational part of you—wants to hide him away from the rest of the world. But then you remember you’re just his mechanic and that it would be weird to be feeling this way about an Automaton, of all things.

You manage to brush off the scene you witnessed for a few weeks. Soonyoung still shows up at your house to watch a few movies or help you fix some other bots that come into the shop. He’s excellent company because his robot-to-robot communication skills make your job easier than it used to be.

Until one night, he snuggles up to you on the couch a little too closely—your heart beating a little too fast at the close proximity.

“I don’t get why she has to give up her tail for a man,” he murmurs from where his chin is propped on top of your shoulder, pulling you closer to him whether he knows it or not. “Aren’t there any other mermen that Ariel could just get with?”

“That’s what makes the story interesting, Soonie,” you chuckle, trying not to melt in his embrace despite knowing that the heat of his body is all artificial. “She’s sacrificing everything for love. It’s all part of the human experience.”

Soonyoung scoffs at that. “But Ariel’s a mermaid.”

“Just shut up and watch the movie.”

Ever the obedient bot, your current company does as he’s told until the credits start rolling and you have to get up to rid yourself of a crick in your neck. You’ve been in the same position for over two hours, having forgotten that Automatons don’t need to move around to get comfortable in their seats. Oversight on your part, really.

But before you can even attempt to crawl out of Soonyoung’s secure embrace, he tugs you back down—forcing you to face him with a puzzled expression.

“I’m gonna get some water,” you tell him. “Let me go, clingy robot.”

He doesn’t budge. Soonyoung simply pins you in place with his firm grip and the heat of his stare, and it takes you a few moments to realize that he’s looking at you the same way he looked at that woman outside of Chan’s club a few nights ago.

“You saw me while I was working, didn’t you?” he murmurs. “I’m sorry.”

You swallow thickly. “W-Why are you apologizing?”

“Because I accidentally introduced myself with the name you gave me,” Soonyoung sighs, lower lip swelling into a pout. “I always go by Hoshi at work, but we’d just finished watching Pocahontas together before I timed in that night.”

“Soonyoung,” you address him warily, unsure of where you should place yourself in this situation. “What are you going on about? That name is yours.”

“And I told you that it’s yours as well, didn’t I?” His laughter is a soft noise that tickles the back of your neck, making gooseflesh prickle the skin of your arms.

“I’m yours.”

His words make a steady buzz resound in your head, making you second guess if any of this is even real. Did you drink too many pints of beer and are currently hallucinating a Soonyoung that might feel the same way you do about him? That’s not right. Jisung already emptied your fridge of alcoholic beverages months ago and you haven’t bought any new packs since.

But if you’re not intoxicated, why in the world is an Automaton speaking to you as if he’s confessing feelings he doesn’t even have?

“You’re just hung up on the movie, you bucket of bolts,” you grumble, trying to push him off of you to no avail. Fuck. This is all very much real then. “Soonyoung, I’m not playing around.”

“Neither am I,” he whispers. When he leans closer, you don’t feel his breath on your face, don’t hear his heart thundering in his chest because he isn’t human.

He isn’t human, yet why doesn’t that stop you from wanting him anyway?

“Tell me to get up and leave if you want me to stop,” Soonyoung proposes with a dangerous look in his eyes. “Tell me you don’t want me and I’ll leave you alone for good.”

You want him—you want him so fucking bad, it feels like a disease.

“Why’re you only coming for me with this now?” you whisper. “What prompted it?”

The handsome Automaton laughs quietly, caressing your face so delicately, you wonder if he learned to practice it from the countless clients he’s entertained. “I think I’ve always been a little attached to you since I first woke up after breaking down. You’re the one who cured my anxiety, Y/N. It’s only natural for me to feel drawn to you.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“Heh. Fine. Maybe it’s because Ariel inspired me to be a little more like her—to sacrifice everything love.”

…Love?

Soonyoung loves you?

It doesn’t make sense. He isn’t supposed to love. Automatons are sentient, but they aren’t capable of a full spectrum of emotions. The mere prospect of it goes against everything you’ve been taught ever since you decided that you wanted to become a mechanic.

But from the way Soonyoung is looking at you alone, you remind yourself that every now and again, there are outliers to all the facts printed on every Automaton textbook you’ve buried your nose in.

Rationality is your enemy at this point, and you toss all of it to the wind when you yank the front of Soonyoung’s shirt—mending your lips into a kiss that shouldn’t feel as good as it does. His mouth is soft on top of yours, and he moves to the cadence you’ve set so languidly, it almost feels fluid. You gasp into his mouth when Soonyoung curls an arm around your waist, pressing you as close to him as humanly possible.

“Soonyoung,” you whisper. “Want you.”

He pulls away for a second—not even looking a fraction of how disheveled you are from a single kiss. “Are you sure?”

The concern in his tone sends a rush straight through your skull. What kind of algorithm allows for an Automaton to express that kind of emotion on its own accord? Are the other idols that escaped with him the same way? You find out that you don’t really know the answers to these questions right now—nor do you want to know.

What you want is for him to be so deep inside you, you’ll feel him for days.

You yank him down for another kiss all while you desperately rid yourself of your once-comfortable and now-stifling clothes. They come off one by one until they’re but a heap on the floor and Soonyoung has the gall to chuckle at your impatience.

“If you wanted me this much, you should’ve just told me sooner,” he whispers, peppering your face with featherlight kisses. “I think I’ve had enough practice to be a good enough lover for you.”

“Mention that so-called practice again and I’ll deactivate your nervous system,” you growl and Soonyoung responds by trailing his mouth across your neck—suckling at the skin above your pulse with a conniving grin.

Just like any other humanoid Level 1, Soonyoung is soft in all places humans should be. His lips, his skin—everything. While the physics that surrounded an Automaton’s male genitalia are out of your scope of expertise, it’s infinitesimally interesting to know that their cocks work the exact same way as a human’s. Even if there’s no blood coursing through his non-existent veins, Soonyoung still gets hard with just the right stimulus.

That stimulus being the swell of your breasts because he hasn’t parted from them since he started suckling on the sensitive flesh five minutes ago.

“Soonie,” you whimper, grinding your sopping core against his thigh. “More. Give me more.”

He laughs—a breathless little sound before his gaze flickers up to you so lovingly, it almost hurts. “I thought I was the impatient one between the two of us.”

“Just shut up and fuck me, please.”

The raw desire in your plea makes the smile disappear from his face. When Soonyoung presses his forehead against yours, his gaze sears into your own so intensely, you’ll still be able to see him with your eyes closed.

“I never thought I’d ever get to hear you beg for me,” he admits, adjusting himself on the couch for your comfort. “I want to hear it again.”

Your Automaton lover doesn’t give you any forewarning that he’ll be pushing the head of his cock inside you. You’re simply greeted by the welcome intrusion of him parting your slick walls—little to no preparation needed because of how much you’re dripping onto the cushions. Soonyoung hisses between his teeth, a ravenous look that you’ve never seen sitting on his face, which has you clamping down deliciously against his length.

“Do you feel it?” he murmurs, sinking inch by fucking inch into you. “Do you feel me inside you?”

You feel him everywhere. All of your senses are overloaded with him, him, him. Right now, he isn’t Hoshi from 53V3NT33N or Hoshi, the rising star of the red light district.

He’s Soonyoung. Your precious, irreplaceable Soonyoung.

“Yes,” you moan out loud, fucking your hips back onto his to generate the friction you so direly needed. “Deeper, Soonyoung. Want you deeper.”

And he gives you just that.

Soonyoung pistons his hips with practiced ease, not a single pant to be heard from him as his cock plunges in and out of your wet heat. You pull him into your embrace like you’re afraid he’ll disappear if you don’t hold onto him tightly enough and your lover quickly picks up on the message—wrapping his strong arms around you as he mercilessly pounds you into the sofa.

Every word you know eludes you as the mind-numbing pleasure frazzles your brain. You can’t even articulate how good it feels to have him ram into you like he wants to leave his mark inside your body forever. You’ve never had sex this toe-curling, and it’s a little pitiful to make that discovery when the one who’s fucking you to an inch of your life isn’t even human.

But that’s what makes it feel right in the midst of its wrongness.

When you come apart on his cock the first time, it makes you wonder if that’s what it feels like to fall from grace. The creeping high leading up to your release as you free-fall into oblivion should’ve been daunting, but all that sings in your veins is pure ecstasy as Soonyoung fucks you through your orgasm.

He leans down to capture your lips, devouring your mouth in a way that only means he’s staking his claim. It’s a kiss that bruises—a kiss that persists. And you barely hear yourself scream his name into his mouth when you finally come down from bliss.

Just when you thought you could finally let yourself breathe, Soonyoung gently turns you around on the couch—forcing your back into an arch as he props you up by the knees. Still disoriented from your last orgasm, you don’t immediately process what he’s trying to do until you feel the hardness of his cock nudging against the ridge of your ass.

That’s when you remember that Automatons do not get tired.

Fuck.

“You better be ready for me,” Soonyoung chuckles into your ear before pressing a soft kiss to your temple.

“If you want me, you’re getting all of me.”

In the aftermath, you let yourself look at Soonyoung even with your eyes streaked with tears. He’s smiling at you like you’re the most precious thing in all the galaxies combined and you’re too fucked out to not melt into his embrace when he engulfs you in the heat of his arms.

You love him, you think.

Loving a machine that shouldn’t be capable of love is contradictory in every sense of the word. He’s a complete softie whenever he hangs out with you, but would pass as a predator when he’s with his clients. He’s a bot that loves to dance, but would give that up in a heartbeat if others needed him for another purpose.

Then again the lines have started to blur considerably since Soonyoung started fucking you into incoherence. Pain and pleasure, human and not human, love and lust—

“I love you,” you murmur, only half conscious as Soonyoung carries you to your bed. “Soonyoung, I love you…”

A soft laugh rumbles deep in his chest as he tucks you in—replacing the warmth of his body with the comfort of your blanket. You frown at the sudden change, but he’s tired you out too much for you to hold up any sort of protest.

As he stands before the doorway, you manage to wrench your eyes open just a tad—enough to see the ray of sunshine standing before you with a loving look on his face. He even does that little pose with his fingers clenched like a tiger’s claws—the one he did when he opened his eyes after you managed to fix him the first time.

Horanghae… That’s what he called it, right?

You’re too exhausted to notice the pained undertones that lurk beneath Soonyoung’s smile, but perhaps it’s something that you can deal with once morning comes.

If he’s still there at all.

“That took you a while.”

Jisung’s voice is clipped when Soonyoung emerges from your house with an indifferent look on his face. Standing right behind him are a bunch of familiar faces—namely 53V3NT33N’s main manager along with a handful of guards that used to keep them tightly locked up back in their main facility on Earth.

He never thought he’d have to see them again.

“If I’m leaving this place for good, I’m not going to go without giving her something to remember me by,” Soonyoung grumbles, hands shoved into the pockets of his sweats as he rejoins his former colleagues. “Is it true? You’ll give Jisung enough money for his brother’s transplant if I come back?”

His manager nods once. “Positive. The reward money will be doubled since you returned without resistance. But I cannot guarantee the degree of the punishment you’ll be facing because of your escape.”

Right. Of course there’ll be consequences for his own actions. But Soonyoung is just glad that he got to have you at least once in his robotic life before he has to turn himself back in.

“Jisung,” Soonyoung—no, Hoshi calls out. “Can you promise to take care of her? If you don’t, I’ll personally fly back here to kill you with my own two hands.”

“Hoshi,” one of the guards grunts behind him, shoving his back with a warning glare. “No violence. Even minor threats like that will make your sentence even heavier.”

He doesn’t care. Not really.

“Just give the man his money and let’s go,” he grumbles, forcing himself to turn away from the direction of your house before his code malfunctions and he ends up bolting back inside.

His manager nods before one of the assistants presents Jisung with a suitcase full of enough wads of cash to fund his brother’s surgery and more. There’s a look on your neighbor’s face that Hoshi can only identify as regret, but there’s really no use for that now.

Even if Jisung didn’t need the money from turning over a rogue Automaton, Hoshi still would’ve surrendered eventually. When word got around that his hunters had finally tracked him down to Salax, he already knew his days were numbered.

But despite knowing all that, it doesn't stop him from wishing he had more time.

When daylight comes and the sun lights up the darkness of your room, you squint at how bright it shines even through the curtains. You’re sore all over and it only takes a single glance at your body to realize that maybe having multiple rounds of sex with a tireless Automaton wasn’t one of the best choices you’ve made in your life.

That, and you’re going to have to give Soonyoung a very long lecture about the physiological differences between his body and yours. And that leaving without waking you up is a major foul when it comes to sleeping with someone you care about.

Right after freshening up and soothing every bit of tender flesh, you go about your day like usual—doing chores, checking if Jisung is home (he’s not), and holing yourself up in your lab to work on a few projects you’ve been procrastinating long enough.

But just when you’re about to bust open your toolbox, you notice a familiar gadget sitting on top of your work table. The same work table that you could’ve sworn you made sure to clear out the previous evening.

It’s another portable hologram projector—one that looks exactly like the old artifact you managed to revive thanks to Soonyoung’s intervention. This one looks less shabby than the one Jisung gave you back then, and you realize that there’s a note stuck to the bottom.

The switch is right beneath the motherboard. Don’t forget! - S

Huh. That guy had the time to put together a hologram for you, but he couldn’t be bothered to wake you up before he left? The nerve of some Automatons, really…

None the wiser about your newfound lover’s actual whereabouts, you followed the instructions Soonyoung whispered into your ear several months ago before letting it play.

⟢ end notes: yay you're at the end of it! thank you so much for reading <3 thank you so so much to bee for being big-brained enough to put this collab together. i've always wanted to 1.) write a sci-fi fic and 2.) write more for soonyoung so this opportunity was a good avenue for both <3 i'm just bummed bc i procrastinated this for too long and kind of ended up with a subpar fic, but !! i still kinda enjoyed building the world around soonyoung and yn and their friends :') in another life, i would've fleshed this out properly, but for now, i'll leave you all with this! do check out the other fics in the collab bc it will definitely expand on this massive universe that we all worked hard to put together <3

this is part of @idyllic-ghost's svt sci-fi collab!

#seventeen smut #svthub #soonyoung smut #hoshi smut #seventeen x reader #soonyoung x reader #hoshi x reader #lovelyhan #📖 collabs #full length fic 📚

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