frankenstein complex ⇢ q.k | ✔

eighteen

Your limbs still felt heavy and your thoughts sluggish with sleep, but you groaned and rolled over nevertheless, surprised when you didn't bump into anybody. Pushing yourself up onto an elbow, you opened your eyes, looking around the room for Kun.

He was standing by the dresser, and turned around upon hearing you stir. Kun walked over to sit on the other mattress across from you. "Morning. How's your head?"

"I slept through mess last night?" You questioned, pulling yourself all the way up to sit against the pillows behind you.

"Yeah. I told the guys you were stuck in one of your articles, brought our dinner back here," he indicated toward two bowls sitting on the desk, one empty with a spoon sticking out of it, the other covered, the spoon sitting atop the lid. "How's your head?"

"Oh, fine. Did Dejun give you your injections?"

"I gave them to myself. The angle was a little awkward, but I didn't want Xiao asking why you couldn't."

It was then that you saw the sheets he was sitting on were wrinkled and out of place, the pillow with a noticeable head dent in it, askew from its usual position. "You slept in the other bed."

"I didn't want to disturb you. You looked like you needed the rest," he stated, his words kind, but you could see the unfamiliar stiffness in his body.

You sat cross-legged to face him. "You're debating the ethics of continuing our relationship after witnessing the effect a direct order had on me yesterday."

"Well..."

"It's not unreasonable. It also wouldn't be unreasonable for you to question if a robot can even love."

"Y/N..."

"It's understandable, Kun," you reiterated, sincere.

"Look, I just don't want you to be doing this because you think saying no would hurt me. You don't need to worry about inflicting that kind of harm."

"You think this is all from the First Law?"

"I don't know, is my point," he stressed.

"Kunhang flirted with me first, shouldn't I have ended up with him then, by your logic? According to the First Law? To not hurt him and the clear advances he was making on me?" You didn't mean for your words to come out as harshly as they did, but you could feel the bitterness on your tongue coating them as they left your lips.

"I don't know," Kun repeated.

"I can't prove to you that what I'm feeling is real. Or that I'm feeling anything at all. I don't even know what that means. I mean, how do you know that you're feeling things? That you're feeling them 'right?'" You argued.

"I-I just do. Sometimes I feel them in my body, too. My heart starts beating faster, my face gets warm, my fingertips tingle, my stomach feels funny, my chest hurts."

"That sounds like you should see Dejun."

"Maybe, it's chronic at this point. Been happening for a few weeks now."

You shot to your feet, "Kun! Oh my G—"

"Love. I was describing love," he finished.

"Oh."

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you."

You sat back down, staring at your feet with what you could only describe as righteous anger. Kun said he loved you, and it was marred by this realization, by a debate of if you knew what that meant, if you could even reciprocate, if it was even ethical for him to feel this for you in the first place. Clenching your jaw, you took a deep breath before picking your head back up to look at him, "There is nothing I could do to objectively prove that what I feel for you is love, Kun. There is also no way for me to say that I love you in the same way a human does. I don't know what that's like. But the best I have to offer you is that when it comes to you and our relationship, it feels distinctly different than when I was given that order."