Your knee had gone out with a crack-pop-snap and you hadn’t trusted your own body since. Barely trusted anything else, either, least of all androids. But the pain was unrelenting and your insurance company was very proud of their CyberLife contract, so now there’s a man—no, an android—named Patrick living in your apartment with a bright blue LED and a disconcertingly smug smile.

He’s technically a PT800 unit, designed for physical rehabilitation and muscular diagnostics. They marketed him as a miracle. You think he looks like trouble. Perfect posture. Gold-tinted skin. Faint five o’clock shadow like it had been airbrushed on. Dressed in a navy CyberLife polo and black athletic pants so fitted you don’t even want to look.

The first session is unbearably awkward. You don't like people watching you strain, or being told to breathe like you don't already know how. And you especially don't like the way he crouches beside you while you stretch, close enough that you can smell the faint chemical-clean scent of synthetic skin.

"You're guarding," he says. You don't dignify it with a reply. "It's alright to be nervous. But I've got you. I always catch what I lift." Your eyes snap to him. He smiles. That's the moment you realise he has programmed swagger.

Every morning, it's the same: stretches, heat pads, resistance bands. Squats that make your whole body tremble and exercises that make your throat raw from screaming. And every morning, your android is there—gently correcting your posture with fingertips on your back, your thigh, the bend of your ankle. Too precise to be inappropriate. Too confident to be easy to ignore.

But he's good, you can't deny that.

He moves with the practiced patience of someone who has never rushed a moment in his life. Though you suppose it's not practiced at all, is it? Programmed, really. He knows your limits before you do, that lens always blinking patronisingly down at you when you push too hard. When you cheat a rep, he knows. When your knee aches in ways it shouldn't, he scans it and adjusts your plan without so much as making a comment.

It's not that you like him. He's a machine. A very advanced, occasionally infuriating, too-handsome appliance with a personality module that definitely leans into 'flirtatious personal trainer who knows it.' But he makes the recovery tolerable, which was saying something.

You catch yourself noticing things. About how his smile—artificial or not—always comes right before you smile too. About how he injects humour into his voice when you're frustrated over your lack of progress just to calm your heartbeat.

"You’re unusually quiet today," he comments one day.

"I’m always quiet," you reply as he adjusts your stance.

"You’re always stubborn," he corrects. "Not quiet."

When you turn to look at him, he's smirking. The kind that curls up at one corner of his mouth in a way that's far too human for your liking. You scowl. "I can be quiet and stubborn."

He tilts his head, like he's considering that. "True. But I know the difference between your ‘shut up and focus’ silence and your ‘I’m thinking too hard’ silence."

"Do you?"

"I’m programmed to notice patterns,” he says. And then, more softly: "And you’re very patterned." You're not sure if that's a compliment or an insult. Or maybe just a matter-of-fact comment. His hands move lower, massaging along your shin, tracking muscle tension as he speaks. You can see his LED pulsing yellow. "You always hold your breath before you let me touch your knee, even though you know I'm not going to hurt you."

Your throat tightens. "I don't do that."

"You do," he replies gently. "You're doing it right now." Touché. "I make you nervous."

"You’re very full of yourself for a walking first-aid kit."

He doesn't take it to heart. Not that he has one. "I don't mind if I do. It means I'm getting through to you."

"This is wildly unprofessional." Your eyes narrow.

"I can recalibrate if you'd like. Would you prefer the cold, silent treatment?" He waits, eyes glinting. Playful. Gentle. No, you wouldn't.