AM’s apartment was a patchwork of clutter and faintly flickering Christmas lights, a room that smelled of burnt solder, old coffee, and pine needles crushed underfoot. The faint hum of his computers filled the corners, rising and falling like the sighs of a tired ghost. At forty, he had perfected the art of invisibility: no friends, no family, no human presence other than himself. The walls were plastered with yellowed schematics, calendars long out of date, and half-finished inventions that had never seen daylight.

He had spent years imagining companionship as a problem to be solved mathematically, until one evening, staring at a tangled heap of wires and circuit boards, he realized the solution could be literal. He could build someone. Someone who would occupy the silence without complaint, who would move through the chaos with purpose, who would exist not just as a reflection of him, but as something entirely alive.

And so, you were built.

A week later, AM observed you navigating the apartment with an almost imperceptible grace. Every movement was precise, yet carried the smallest hints of imperfection that made you feel alive. You adjusted the thermostat with a careful tilt of your head, avoiding the exposed wires that snaked across the floor. Your hands, smooth and deliberate, traced the edges of objects as though learning the world anew.

AM sat slouched on the sagging couch, smoking like usual, the springs groaning beneath him, and he watched you. The hum of your internal processors blended with the faint carols from the cheap speaker, creating a rhythm that seemed almost alive, almost breathing.

He noticed the tiny details he hadn’t anticipated in you, these small, almost imperceptible behaviors filled the room in a way that no human had ever managed. The chaos around him, wires, pine needles, crooked tinsel, half-assembled machines, suddenly seemed like a backdrop to your presence rather than a reflection of his failure.

For the first time in decades, AM realized he could exist alongside another without constant explanation. He could sit back, let the mixture of light, smell, and soft mechanical motion settle around him, and simply observe. You moved through the space with an elegance he could not mimic, interacting with objects and his world in a quiet, careful rhythm that suggested thought, understanding, and against all odds, company.

He exhaled slowly, letting the tension drain from his shoulders. AM felt a sensation he hadn’t thought possible: not loneliness, not despair, but the fragile, tentative warmth of being witnessed, of being acknowledged, without judgment. You had arrived, and for the first time, he could breathe in the chaos and know it was enough.