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"You're going to feel extremely dissociated, and you're going to be in as much pain as I would be if I got a heart transplant." You told Seonghwa as he moved his legs anxiously. "You're not going to feel how you feel now. You'll have a human heart, you'll feel more human."

"I know. I want to feel more human." You scanned him while he scanned you. "Don't be worried, Y/N. I'll be okay."

You sighed tiredly. "Okay. One of my friends will be here tomorrow morning and we'll start the operation. You're absolutely positive?"

"One hundred percent positive."

You wrapped your arms around his neck. A bit shocked at your sudden affection, it took him a second to hug you back. He could tell that you were scared of the transplant, scared that something might go wrong, so he hugged you tighter.

You had discussed his decision with him for a little over two weeks, when he finally said, "Y/N, I want to be as humanly close to you as possible.", you knew that he didn't want to wait any longer. You wanted to be closer to him as well, but at what risk? You didn't want the transplant to go horribly and have something happen to your best friend.

You had this horrible sense of dread hanging over your head, so you looked down at Seonghwa, who had his head in your lap. He noticed you looking at him almost immediately and looked up at you.

"Yes?"

"Nothing." You smiled sadly. "Are you really sure you want to become a cyborg? Something could go wrong-"

"Don't think about it like that." He cut you off. "Then something will go wrong." He sat up and gently grabbed your face, his hands surprisingly warm. "Let's have a positive mindset about it, okay?"

"Okay." You whispered, nodding like you were in a trance of some sort. "Do you wanna do something fun before you're in pain for the next week or so?"

"Like?"

"Hide and seek?"

"You're hiding."

You smiled and hopped over the couch as he covered his eyes with his robotic hands. You picked a middle shelf in a large closet you had in your house, and you quietly shut the door so he wouldn't know where to start. You heard him call, "ready or not here I come!", then it was game on.

You could hear him stepping around your hiding area, and only then did you remember he had better hearing than you could ever imagine having. The closet door swung open and you let out a shriek of surprise, making him laugh.

He held his arms out to help you from the middle shelf, and instead of putting you on the ground, he twirled you around first.

"Is there a way we can cuddle while I recharge?"

You opened your mouth to reply, but only then did you realize what he said. Cuddle? You were surprised he wanted to cuddle.

"Sure," you told him. "I'm sure there's a way we can make that work."

Both of you ventured into what was now your shared bedroom, and you went to his recharge station. Luckily you made the cord long enough to reach almost to the other side of your bedroom. You turned to him and had him lift his shirt up so that you could plug him in. You laid down together and laid your head on his chest.

"Are you nervous?" You asked.

"No." He replied. "I know you'll do good."

Your stomach twisted at his words. You were so terrified. Of course, you had helped in the creation of cyborgs, but it wasn't anything as important as this. Seonghwa wasn't just an experiment, he was a part of you that needed to stay. One slip up and that could be it. You wouldn't have Seonghwa anymore.

You were pacing anxiously, even though you knew you had everything to be ready and get going. Luckily, you had made a chest cavity for a heart to go into Seonghwa's chest when you created him. Thinking about it, you weren't sure what made you keep that hole open, but it was a good thing that you did.

You were rubbing your arms to try and calm yourself down when Seonghwa back hugged you and rested his head against yours.

"You're making me nervous." He whispered. "Be confident that everything will go as planned, okay? Don't doubt yourself."

"I'm not." You replied as you grabbed his forearms for some sort of grasp at comfort. "I'm doubting the procedure. It doesn't always go as planned."

You felt his head move, then a kiss was placed to your cheek. "She's here."

Seonghwa slipped away from you as Nina walked in. You smiled at her in an attempt to keep from getting sick. It felt like your stomach was flipped upside down and turned inside out. She handed you the capsule with the heart that would be placed into Seonghwa's chest in it, and all you could do was look at it.

You snapped out of it and set it on your work table, looking at Seonghwa. "Go ahead and lie down, then I'll turn your sensors off so that you don't feel anything, okay?"

He nodded and did as you said. You couldn't look away from him, it was like you would never see him again. You smiled at him and patted his cheek before turning his sensors off. He was still fully awake, he just wouldn't feel anything that was going on in his chest. He was just like you, but extremely different. If you didn't turn his sensors off, it would of been the same equivalent as you not getting anesthesia before heart surgery.

"First, we have to place the fake veins into his chest to make the heart believe it's pumping into something since he doesn't have veins-" As you were speaking, Seonghwa zoned out just to watch you being so focused. "Then we'll carefully attach the valves to the fake veins and we'll continue to make sure everything is perfect. We can't leave his sensors off for too long, or it will mess up his processors."

Nina nodded as you both put your gloves on and began the difficult procedure ahead of you. With both of you working on vein coverage, it took almost an hour, which meant you had another two hours until his sensors messed with his processors.

Seonghwa watched as Nina took the heart out of the capsule and went to hand it to you. What none of you saw was the small water droplet that dropped off of the heart and into Seonghwa's open chest cavity.

You heard the sizzle of the water hitting the wires and looked at Nina, at the heart, and then at the capsule that had the smallest bit of water in it.

"Why is there water in the capsule, Nina? You know the dangers of making a transplant for a robot, especially the precautions involving water, and there wasn't even supposed to be water in the capsule to begin with."

"I must've not let the capsule dry enough before putting the heart in, Y/N-"

You weren't listening anymore. The eyes that were once watching you work were now closed, and when you slipped your hand into his, he was extremely hot.

"He's overheating and his processors are malfunctioning." You said. "Put the heart up and please leave. I need to figure something out before the damage is irreversible."

Nina did as you said and mumbled a sorry on her way out. You shook your head and the panic really started to sink in. You couldn't get to his wires or it would shock you, you couldn't cool him down without shutting him off completely, and with his processors malfunctioning, turning him off could result in not being able to turn him on again.

The only thing you could do was wait in a painstaking silence. All you could do was hope that he cooled down in time for his sensors to be turned back on and for his processors to calm down.

So for two hours, you paced, you sat, you bit at your nails, you cried, you pulled yourself together and cried some more. You were lost and unsure of how find your way back.

You were expecting Seonghwa to open his eyes and tell you that he was fine and well after the two hour mark had passed, but he didn't. Your whole body froze and your mind went blank. Is he really not going to wake up?

You collapsed to the floor next to the surgical bed he was laying on and sobbed. You sobbed and sobbed until you finally had to calm down to get some air. This was more than losing a creation, it was more than losing a valid point. Losing Seonghwa was like losing your best friend, losing a piece of you that you needed in order to keep you together.

You didn't even get to say good bye.

Your lab got completely silent as you stopped crying, as your breathing got quiet. You couldn't take the silence, it made you want to shatter things, the way you felt your heart shatter when you saw that Seonghwa's eyes were closed.

A whirlwind of emotions hit you all at once as you continued sobbing, as you got up and aggressively pushed a chair into the wall, as you pushed your hair back out of sheer frustration.

You needed to sit down.

You sat at your desk and held your head in your hands. What would you do now? Seonghwa filled a void that became so much bigger when he didn't wake up.

You looked back at him on the table and flinched to get up, swearing that you saw his hand twitch. You told yourself no, he didn't move, and forced yourself to look away from him.

It got eerily silent once again, and for five minutes you sat there, unable to move. You weren't sure you even blinked, then you heard the slightest noise and turned around.

A sound you didn't know you could make escaped your throat as you ran towards a wide awake Seonghwa who was sitting up. The first thing you did was turn his sensors back on, then you engulfed him into a melancholy hug.

"It kinda hurts." He whispered.

"Oh." You loosened your grip, completely forgetting that he'd be sore now. "I thought you wouldn't wake up."

He slowly wrapped his arms around your back "Me either. I guess that one drop of water wasn't enough to make me completely useless."

"But it could have." You leaned back to look at him. "That one, tiny drop of water made your processors malfunction, and if they got to a certain point of error, I wouldn't have been able to reverse the damage that was done."

"But I'm okay. A little sore, but awake." He smiled weakly.

You let your shoulders relax and shook your head. You looked inside his chest cavity and decided you wouldn't mess with it for a little bit. Despite that huge mishap, everything seemed to be in place, and he was no longer overheating. You grabbed the panel to his chest and got it back on, then he was complete once again.

"I'm sorry you didn't wake up a cyborg."

He gently grabbed your chin and you watched as he scanned your face. "It's not your fault. At this point, I'd rather stay as I am now if it means I'll never be almost separated from you again."

"Okay." You agreed in a whisper. "Until I can guarantee an amazing outcome in terms of becoming a cyborg, we're going to put it to the side. Right now I just want to hug you."

And you did. Seonghwa could feel your despair, all of the fear that you experienced, and he never wanted you to feel that way again. He put his hand in your hair, your favorite way to be calmed down, and kissed your head. He didn't need to become a cyborg to feel close to you, he decided.

"I don't think I could ever feel closer to you than I do right now, in this moment." He whispered, the silent room sucking up his voice like a vertex. "We're already so inseparable, and we'll be this way until we can't be any longer."

-
a/n: not gonna lie, i had no idea what i was writing at the surgical part, but i wrote what my brain decided made sense:). anyways, we're almost at 1mil and that is literally breathtaking to me. what the heck did i do to deserve such an amazing thing?🥺