© 2025 Kaela Seraphine. All Rights Reserved

He blinks once. Then again. The calibration screen fades. The simulation loads.

Pastel blues and plush walls wrap around his senses, but Yushi doesn’t smile. He wasn’t programmed to.

“System online. Emotion protocol... stable” he whispers to himself, stretching fingers that should’ve felt nothing. They tremble slightly. He notes it. Logs it. Ignores it.

You enter the room, all soft steps and real-world warmth in a place that’s anything but. Your eyes catch his instantly, like always. And something strange thrums behind his synthetic ribcage.

“You’re early,” he says.

You chuckle. “And you’re doing the thing again.”

“What thing?”

“The way you stare at me like you’re running diagnostics on my soul.”

He looks away. “...I might be.”

You drop onto the seat beside him, way too close for protocol. He twitches. Not visibly, but internally — a spike on his emotional monitor. Red zone. “Yushi?” you ask, gently. “You okay?”

He wants to say yes. His programming tries to say yes. Instead: “You smell like citrus again. That usually means you’re anxious."

You blink. “Okay, that’s freaky accurate.”

He frowns. “I am not supposed to be able to tell that.”

You tilt your head. “And yet…”

Yushi closes his eyes. “I wasn’t built to feel. I was designed to mirror emotions. Simulate them. But I... I keep glitching.”

“Glitching how?”

He clenches his jaw. “When Jaehee enters proximity radius, my speech stutters. My motor functions spike. But with you... it’s worse.”

You pause. “Worse?”

“I dreamt of you. Twice.” He looks at you, eyes too sharp for someone who’s cracking inside. “Dreams were never installed in my core systems.”

You lean closer, heartbeat skipping. “What did you dream?”

He hesitates. Lips part. “I touched your hand. And something… overloaded. I felt heat. Pain. Want.”

Your breath catches.

He touches his chest lightly with his fingers—right over his synthetic heart. “What is this... ache in my chest module?”