Sentimental Shower

#019

He woke up abruptly, his whole body drenched in sweat.

‘…A dream?’

It wasn’t a dream. His android brain couldn’t dream. It was merely a recollection of memories.

It might have been a signal from his damaged body. Reviving memories of the most fearful times as a warning.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t pleasant. Mr. Yoo wiped his sweat-soaked eyes and looked around.

Yeon Tae-soo, wearing only pajama pants, approached with a cigarette in his prosthetic hand.

“You’re awake? My goodness, I thought we were having a funeral in the middle of sex.”

“…What happened?”

He asked dazedly. The display seemed to be malfunctioning, filled with noise. He closed his eyes tightly and opened them to find Yeon Tae-soo approaching the bed, peering at him. The cigarette was already put out. The lack of emotion analysis results confirmed that it was indeed broken.

“What do you mean what happened? You passed out after coming a few times. Was my hand that good?”

It seemed that his system had momentarily shut down due to an overwhelmingly strong stimulus. Unlike humans, his brain had a function to forcibly stop his body.

And now, as he was nearing breakdown, that function didn’t seem to be working properly.

He knew he was different from typical androids. While there was abundant information about androids, much of it didn’t apply to him.

The problem was that he had fainted in front of Yeon Tae-soo. He discreetly brought his hand to his face, finding the mask still covering the lower half.

“I didn’t look, I didn’t look,” Yeon Tae-soo said in a chiding tone.

“Seriously, did you paint gold on your face or something? Why do you keep it so tightly wrapped?”

“……”

“It’s driving me crazy. Are you doing this on purpose? To make me go mad with desire?”

“…It’s not like that.”

Mr. Yoo secretly felt relieved. If Yeon Tae-soo had recognized his face and known his identity, he wouldn’t be making such expressions.

His clothes had been changed to a clean gown, and his body wasn’t sticky and smelled good. Surely Yeon Tae-soo couldn’t have cleaned him up.

After assessing the situation, another worry suddenly arose. The act he had done with Yeon Tae-soo suddenly felt terribly inadequate.

He had passed out before proper penetration. Yeon Tae-soo must not have been satisfied at all.

‘…What should I do.’

Perhaps his chances of receiving protection from him had become remote. He must have brought him for ‘that’ purpose, but he couldn’t fulfill it properly.

Lost in thought, Yeon Tae-soo’s hand on the bed suddenly rose and snapped his fingers in front of him.

“Mr. Yoo, are you okay? Should I call a doctor?”

“Ah, no. I’m fine.”

Yeon Tae-soo narrowed his eyes slightly, seeming to read him, then got up from the bed. He went to a table a little distance away and poured water into a glass.

Yeon Tae-soo approached and held out the glass.

Suddenly, the connection point where the metal hand and the original wrist should have been caught his eye. Even at a glance, the part where the prosthetic was connected looked very rough. It must have been quite painful.

“Drink. I’ll leave.”

Instead of asking how he lost his hand, Mr. Yoo quietly took the glass he offered.

Somehow, he felt cautious about asking this man questions. Even though he seemed endlessly frivolous.

His system recklessly read anyone and judged their emotions. Was it because he predicted that if this frivolous man’s curiosity towards him disappeared, or if he offended him, he would no longer be protected?

If humans had fear, he had the function of prediction. The fact that it always flowed in a bad direction resembled fear.

“Rest a bit, pretty one.”

Again. That look of emptiness. While appearing to pursue all kinds of pleasures, wearing a flashy blue prosthetic eye as if showing off, he still had eyes like someone about to die.

Yeon Tae-soo got up and really left the room. Only then did Mr. Yoo lower his mask and take a sip of water, realizing the strangeness a beat late.

‘He’s just leaving like this?’

Without rape, without threats? Without even getting angry?

He drank the remaining water amidst slight disappointment and considerable confusion.

The fact that he couldn’t understand Yeon Tae-soo’s intentions made him feel stifled. If he was going to treat him like a prostitute, he should do so, or else…

‘Or else, what?’

Fragments of thoughts seemed to scatter and scramble around in his head. What he wanted from Yeon Tae-soo was clearly one thing. Definite protection. But what else was he hoping for?

As he was about to get up from the bed, pulling his mask up tightly, a sharp pain suddenly grazed his head.

“Ah…!”

It was a terrible headache. Enough to make him scream involuntarily.

Of course, he knew the cause of the headache. Because he was broken. A malfunctioning android shows various symptoms. This was just one of them.

In other words, it meant that numerous other symptoms would arise in the future.

Short-term memory loss would occur, delusions would intrude without his brain commanding them, and in severe cases, his body would stiffen.

And all these symptoms could come at once.

Even though his head felt like it was about to split open right now, strangely, it didn’t feel real. It felt like someone else’s problem. Was this also because he was an android?

If androids can’t even digest the process of breaking down, of being ill, as their own, why did humans create them? Can one truly be called a creator if they invent such complex and difficult beings and then abandon them?

The pain didn’t improve today. He rolled around for a long time, clutching his head. The expression “it feels like my brain is melting” came to mind.

“Ah, hng, ah…!”

He tried not to make a sound, but he couldn’t stop the noises escaping from the pain.

One becomes powerless in pain. It was the time when he was furthest from his mechanical nature.

Despite being in so much pain, why am I a machine? Despite being in such agony.

***

Unlike other parts of Eden, the office was entirely achromatic and quiet. This space, where not even the smallest living noise could be heard, was Yeon Tae-soo’s real domain.

In the quiet and desolate office, nothing existed except for items absolutely necessary for work. It was completely different from the other spaces of Eden, which were the epitome of extravagance. The bulky men who served Yeon Tae-soo said they felt suffocated just entering this place.

“It seems like he’s definitely hiding something.”

Yeon Tae-soo’s muttering echoed in the place that was so quiet it was suffocating.

He drew meaningless lines on a paper placed on the desk. As the lines overlapped, the paper quickly turned black.

‘Mr. Yoo… I can’t even find out his name no matter how much I look into his past.’

He had mobilized his connections to investigate, but there were no results. This was a first.

People are bound to leave traces. There’s no one who lives without leaving traces. So, if you deliberately dig into the past, something always comes up. Even if they cover their face and don’t reveal their name.

But not with the person called Mr. Yoo. There was a lack of traces from the past to an extent that felt eerie.

‘As if someone had intentionally erased them…’

Or as if he wasn’t human at all.

In fact, this was a first. It was the first time he had put so much effort into matching with someone, and the first time he had investigated someone to this extent. It was even interfering with his work. Those pretty eyes kept appearing in his mind whether his eyes were open or closed.

Would this feeling improve if he properly fucked him once? His throat itched with thirst, and he found himself scratching it several times a day out of habit.

Thirst was a very unfamiliar sensation for Yeon Tae-soo.

After early retirement, he had continued to live as a gangster. There were various reasons for rampaging without regard for his body, but the main one was that his senses had dulled after ‘that incident’ in his childhood.

A body dulled to sensations didn’t feel guilty no matter how it was used. It didn’t matter since it was a body that should have died once anyway.

He couldn’t even remember when he had last earnestly wished for something. When even life itself wasn’t earnest, what was there to wish for?

So the appearance of Mr. Yoo, that pretty thing whose name he didn’t even know, was considerably perplexing to Yeon Tae-soo.

It’s not difficult to find someone to fuck. It’s easy to find a face good for eye candy. And among all those he had slept with until now, there were none he had slept with more than twice.

‘Would it get better if I fuck him properly and messily?’

He asked himself if it wouldn’t be delicious, if it hadn’t been amazing even just licking the surface.

And Yeon Tae-soo vaguely guessed. That this thirst couldn’t be quenched simply by inserting his genitals into that pretty thing’s back hole.

It was clear as day that the more he drank, the more thirst it would induce. Mr. Yoo was too noble to be likened to alcohol, and too splendid to be compared to tea.

Too pretty to just look at, but too scary to touch for fear of addiction. It was the first time in Yeon Tae-soo’s fucking life that he couldn’t eat something because it was too precious.

‘It’s all because of those eyes.’

Eyes that were vibrantly alive.

Unlike himself, who acted like a madman pretending to be alive, those were truly living eyes.

Strange. And fascinating.

He wanted to know. What kind of person you are with such eyes. How you’ve lived.

For a moment, he thought he should have removed the mask while he was unconscious, but he knew how sweet fruit tastes after enduring for a long time.

Imagining devouring him from head to toe made his mouth water. He was at the point where he worried that if this continued, he might actually want to eat him, not just metaphorically.

The hand that had been drawing lines fiercely suddenly stopped. Yeon Tae-soo’s face crumpled, then soon smiled as if he had made up his mind, looking somewhat dejected.

“Whatever. As long as he’s pretty.”

That was Yeon Tae-soo’s conclusion.