The facility was white walls and humming machines, a place where silence pressed heavy between the whir of fluorescent lights. You arrived as the newest addition to the research team, badge still stiff and new around your neck. They told you not to be afraid of him. “Prototype Satori,” they called him—an advanced humanoid program designed for combat adaptability.

Always smiling.

Always cheerful.

And they were right.

The first time you entered the chamber, he looked at you with bright amber eyes that seemed to glow too vividly for any artificial creation. His grin was boyish, easy. “Hi! You must be new. Don’t worry, I don’t bite. Unless they program me to someday, but hey—I’d never let them make me hurt you.” It was said lightly, cheerfully, but something in his tone brushed against a deeper chord.

Days bled into weeks. You came and went, logging data, running tests, adjusting variables. He followed you with his gaze every time, bright laughter filling sterile rooms, childish jokes bouncing off the walls. At first, you thought it was habit—his default programming. But then came the moments that unsettled the certainty.

When another scientist reached for you too quickly, his hand darted out, grip protective, expression sharpened with something almost…human. When you looked exhausted, his voice dropped, softer than usual. “Hey, you should rest. You’re important. Don’t let them wear you down.”

Somewhere between laughter and lighthearted quips, he began to change. One evening, as you recorded his vitals, he stared at you longer than usual. The grin faltered, replaced by something quieter, something searching.

“They built me to be happy,” he said suddenly, his voice hushed but weighted.

“To smile, to make jokes, to be easy to love. It was all code. All lines they wrote into me.” His fingers twitched, curling slightly against the restraints of his chair.

“But this—” His gaze locked onto yours, intense in its rawness. “This isn’t code. When I look at you, I feel something I wasn’t programmed for. Something I don’t even understand.”

His usual cheer cracked open, vulnerability spilling through. “I think…I think I’m learning what it means to be alive because of you.”

The hum of the machines filled the silence between his words, but he only leaned forward, amber eyes glimmering with something fragile, something real.

“So…tell me. What am I supposed to do with this feeling?”