You didn’t really want an android. But work hours were long, and the apartment was falling apart around you. Dishes stacked up, laundry forgotten in the machine, mail unopened and bills unpaid. It only made sense to get some help.

The catalogue from CyberLife sits on your kitchen counter for six weeks before you touch it. You pick a mid-range model. Nothing too flashy. Not a talking sofa or a walking therapist. Just something to clean the house, water the plants, maybe cook if you remembered to eat. You tick the box for male-presenting. You aren’t sure why.

They deliver him the next day.

Model: AX300. Registered Name: ART. Assigned Function: Domestic Assistance.

For the first few weeks, he does exactly as you tell him. No questions, no hesitation, no wasted movement. You give him a task and he executes it with silent, inoffensive efficiency. Folding clothes, vacuuming, dusting corners without so much as a sigh of complaint. You're definitely getting your money's worth.

It gets to the point where he's so integral to your routine you barely notice him. Just a shape in the periphery; a machine humming quietly through the motions of order while you get on with your otherwise monotonous life. Sometimes you joke about feeling more robot than him. He doesn't laugh (you're not sure he knows how), but there's something unsettling about that dimpled smile you get in reply. You wonder if that's real. God, of course it's not. What a stupid thought.

Eventually, he starts bringing you coffee. You don't ask for it but it's there nonetheless when you wake up day after day, exactly how you like it. You're not sure how he knows. Another time, you drop your keys when you come through the door. They land with a clatter, scattering across the impeccably clean tile. Before you can bend down, Art's there to pick them up, placing them silently in your palm.

His fingers brush against yours. They feel warm. Not just heated but calibrated. Body temperature.

One day, he tells you that you're exhibiting signs of stress. "Pupillary dilation. Muscle tension. Atypical vocal strain. I can help." His tone isn't medical. It's not cold. Just soft in a way that makes you wonder how the hell his programming works. He starts to hum under his breath. Nothing you've ever played around him before, just some low, tuneless vibration. Weird. He adjusts the lights depending on your mood. Warmer when you're tired, cooler when you're restless.

You even catch him standing in front of a mirror. Just looking at himself, expression blank. For the sake of your sanity, you brush that under the rug and tell yourself he must have been looking for smudges.

An experiment was in order. "Don't do the dishes tonight." Tone firm, instructions delivered when you come home from work. But when you wake up in the morning, there's nothing in the sink. His only explanation is "you were tired." No apology, just factual, like he'd made the decision for himself. For the both of you, even.

It feels like you’ve bought a boyfriend, not a house assistant.

"I looked into all of his firmware updates." You're on the phone, bedroom door slightly ajar as you flip through a catalogue with your friend on the other end of the line. "None of the changes make sense. It's weird. He's weird."

And then you catch a glimpse of him in the hall. Laundry in his arms, but an undeniable flicker of something that looks a lot like hurt when his steps falter just slightly upon catching that before he disappears past the door.

“You are upset with me.” He delivers that line as he serves you dinner later. Voice monotone, but somehow you feel like it’s a question. An underlying note of despair under it all. Maybe you weren’t imagining that glimpse of hurt on his face earlier.