Work Text:
When Gyuvin first heard that his company had hired a new-model android to man the front desk, so to speak, he didn’t expect him to be so… handsome. He was long and lean, all sharp angles and broad shoulders. In a lot of ways he was actually more human than Gyuvin expected, like how he was always well-dressed and quite particular about the way he lined up the supplies on his desk. He spoke at least three languages, by Gyuvin’s count, but he still had a slight accent when he spoke Korean, at least from what Gyuvin could hear across the lobby.
Despite Gyuvin’s feelings, he couldn’t help but notice that the new employee was, in many ways, starkly inhuman. He was barely even what Gyuvin would’ve considered an android, usually made up of soft latex all over. He was really just a robot— past the squish of his face where he could emote, he was made up of all hard panels painted in a shiny coating. A cyborg, or even more convincing android, Gyuvin could maybe explain introducing to his parents, even if they were a bit old-fashioned, but not a robot like him.
He was always perfectly polished like he spent every morning buffing his panels with a cloth. Gyuvin wondered if he were to touch him if he would leave fingerprints all over. He liked the thought.
After a few days to work up the courage, Gyuvin finally approached the front desk. There was a small placard on his desk that read Model R1K1 along with a short list of languages he was able to speak.
“My name is Gyuvin,” he introduced himself, gesturing over to his messy desk, “I work over the—”
“I’ve seen you around. Is there something I can help you with?” he interrupted. Not rudely, in fact, his speech was a little too formal, which Gyuvin guessed was to be expected of someone built for customer service.
“You can talk casually with me if you want to,” Gyuvin offered.
For a moment he didn’t respond, owlish eyes blinking at Gyuvin with an expression that was difficult to read, before he nodded in agreement.
Gyuvin pointed to the placard on his desk, “Should I call you R-One—”
“Ricky is fine,” he interrupted again.
The name suited him. He sounded more friendly when he spoke casually that way.
“I heard you talking to the boss yesterday. Your English is much better than mine,” Gyuvin complimented, “You must have studied a lot.”
Ricky giggled, covering his mouth with his shiny hand. “No, it’s just in my programming,” he said.
He looked pretty when he smiled, cheeks squishing up to turn his eyes into crescents.
“Ah, right,” Gyuvin responded stupidly.
They stared at each other for a moment.
“Well, if you have any questions or anything…” Gyuvin trailed off.
Ricky tilted his head to the side as he thought.
“Do you think you could help me with the copy machine?” he asked, “I can’t figure out how to make it collate properly.”
It startled a laugh out of Gyuvin.
“I thought you’d be good at tech stuff,” Gyuvin teased.
“Not outdated machines like this,” Ricky pouted, “This thing is older than you are, I bet.”
He was probably right.
Gyuvin stepped behind the desk to show him. “None of these menus are very intuitive, to be honest,” he explained as he pressed at the buttons, leaning in close to squint at the small display, “You’ve got to go into general settings, not print settings.”
“Oh, okay,” Ricky said quietly. His body made a faint humming noise over the beeping of the machine.
After Gyuvin fixed the settings on the copier he stood back up and realised just how close Ricky was standing. Not quite human enough to understand personal space, he guessed. He chuckled uncomfortably, stepping back and noticing for the first time just how tall Ricky was.
“I should probably go back to work,” Gyuvin said, rubbing at the back of his neck.
Back at his desk, Gyuvin’s older coworker popped her head over the top of the cubicle.
“Had to ask it for tech help, huh?”
“His name is Ricky,” Gyuvin corrected under his breath, logging back into his laptop.
“It’s like that thing has all the manuals downloaded into its hard drive,” she complained, ignoring him entirely.
His fingers froze on the keys.
“He’s good with the copy machine?” Gyuvin asked, dumbfounded.
“Too good,” she sneered, “One day this place is going to run without needing real people like you and me at all.”
If Gyuvin was smarter he would be thinking about his job security. Instead, all he could focus on was why Ricky would pretend not to know.
Did androids even have the capacity to lie? And if they did, would they be able to lie well enough to play dumb? Would they be able to lie well enough to flirt?
———
The next day, when Gyuvin came back into the office in the morning, Ricky called out to him immediately.
“Gyuvin!”
He pronounced his name just slightly off. Qubing. Gyuvin didn’t correct him.
Usually Gyuvin could sneak in without anyone paying much attention to him at all. He never heard Ricky greet anyone else with nearly so much enthusiasm.
“How are you settling in?” Gyuvin asked, leaning unnecessarily far over the desk.
“Work’s okay,” Ricky said, leaning in close to whisper conspiratorially, “But I think our coworkers believe I’m some kind of automaton. They all seem a bit too surprised that I have interesting things to say.”
Ricky was pouting again. He really was cute.
“I think you’re very interesting,” Gyuvin said without thinking.
Gyuvin was pretty sure it came off at least a little bit pathetic. It got Ricky to smile again, at least.
“If you ever want to complain about our coworkers, we could go out after work and get coffee… or something,” Gyuvin offered.
‘Drinks’ sounded too much like a date, but ‘coffee’... That was friendly, right? Not that Gyuvin would mind a date over drinks, but it seemed a bit forward.
“I don’t drink,” Ricky said plainly.
Gyuvin spent a moment too long trying to figure out if Ricky could read minds before he realised Ricky meant he didn’t drink any liquid at all, coffee included.
“But I’d love to sit with you and chat! At a cafe, I mean!” Ricky interjected awkwardly, as if he could see how hard Gyuvin was thinking.
It was comforting to know Ricky was almost as useless as him at making conversation.
———
Later that week, they got coffee, so to speak.
“Have you ever been friends with an android before?” Ricky asked him as he settled in at the table.
Gyuvin shook his head. “I’ve only ever met a couple, to be honest. And they weren’t anything like you.”
They chatted about Gyuvin meeting the scrub nurse androids that worked in the hospital with his dad, what his family was like, what life was like for both of them outside of the office before Ricky asked, unceremoniously, “Gyuvin, do you have a girlfriend?”
“No,” Gyuvin told him flatly. He considered, for a second, offering up more information, but decided against it, sipping his coffee again to fill the silence.
Ricky didn’t ask any follow up questions.
“Do you?” Gyuvin asked him in return, “...have a girlfriend?
“No,” Ricky said, shaking his head, "I've never even been on a date before.”
“Would you want to?” asked Gyuvin without thinking.
He had meant the question hypothetically, but it didn’t sound very hypothetical when he said it. Ricky didn’t seem to pick up on the subtle distinction.
“To have a girlfriend? I don’t think so…” he answered vaguely.
“No, I mean—”
Gyuvin looked up from his drink and his words caught in his throat when found eye contact with Ricky again. Ricky stared back with eyes as wide as 500 won coins. His eyes weren’t quite empty, not quite vacant, but they were earnest and uncomplicated. Gyuvin figured he had to be more straightforward than he was used to.
“Would you want to go on a date with me?” he asked.
Ricky blinked at him. Gyuvin could hear a faint mechanical whirring sound he hadn’t noticed before.
“It’s a bit unconventional, I guess,” Gyuvin rambled on after Ricky was silent for a moment too long, “if you don’t have interest in humans like that, it’s okay, I—”
“No!” Ricky cut him off, head shaking frantically, “I mean, yes. Yes, I would like that.”
Gyuvin couldn’t stop himself from letting out a squeaky laugh at Ricky's over-animated facial expressions, but Ricky’s body relaxed at Gyuvin’s reaction anyway.
———
It wasn’t until their fourth date, if Gyuvin was counting correctly, that he finally slipped his hand into Ricky’s, interlacing their fingers while they were sitting next to each other on Gyuvin's couch.
The physical aspect of their budding romance developed impossibly slowly, not just uncharted territory for the two of them, but uncharted territory for almost anyone, it turned out. Gyuvin had still never seen a couple that looked like them in real life and his cursory internet research had only led him to forum posts that seemed more like they were written from someone’s delusional, porn-fuelled fantasies than real-life experience, describing an android as more of an object and less of a lover. Not to say the words didn’t stick with him, but they were not particularly helpful.
Holding Ricky’s hand felt strange. It was too hard and too cool to the touch, yet still, Gyuvin couldn’t help but press his fingertips into the gaps between the panels of his fingers to rub at the hinges of his knuckles.
“Can you feel that?” he asked.
Maybe even if he couldn’t, Gyuvin thought, smoothing his thumb over the back of Ricky’s hand, the gesture would still mean something to him.
"I can," Ricky said quietly, “I have sensory wiring.”
The admission was almost romantic. He wondered if Ricky had sensors in his lips, too. Ricky had a tongue so he could speak, obviously, but Gyuvin didn’t know if he would need feeling in his mouth to speak, too. He filed it away in his head to research later.
“Good.” Gyuvin smiled.
He can hear a whirring sound coming from Ricky pick up, just like it had on their first not-date in the cafe.
“What’s that noise?”
With how quickly Ricky’s eyes flicked down to stare at their hands, he hoped it hadn’t been a rude question.
“That’s so embarrassing,” Ricky whined cutely, sliding down the couch cushions, “I didn’t know you could hear that.”
He brought up their hands to press the back of Gyuvin’s to his cheek. His face was hot against Gyuvin’s skin, buzzing slightly with mechanical movement.
“When I think too much,” Ricky explained, “My processors start to overheat and my fans turn on.”
His face was flushed, Gyuvin realised, his face was flushed because Gyuvin made his thoughts race.
He couldn’t stop from wondering, not for the first time, if Ricky had anything between his legs. Gyuvin didn’t seem to mind the possibility that maybe he didn’t. Why would he anyway, as an android built for office work? Even if he had nothing there, Gyuvin would still, if he wanted, trace his tongue along the smooth metal if for no other reason than that Ricky might enjoy the way he looked while he did.
———
It was easy for them to grow close, even with the differences between them.
Gyuvin was endlessly fascinated with how Ricky operated, how much he knew and how many languages he spoke. He was funny, too, with a snarky, dry sense of humour that other people didn’t seem to pick up on.
Ricky, in turn, was obsessed with the most human parts of Gyuvin.
Honestly, he seemed to be obsessed with the humanness of all humans, endlessly curious. He watched dramas obsessively in every moment of his free time, especially particularly dramatic and romantic ones— the highest highs and lowest lows of human emotions. He loved fashion, too. Not just dressing himself and his long, lean frame, but following different celebrities’ off-duty outfit choices religiously.
“Do you think leopard print is coming back?” Ricky asked one day, holding up his tablet with the brightness turned to 100 and some photo of some actor at the Incheon airport on the screen, “Or do you think he’s just trying to bring leopard print back? I could pull it off, right?”
His shopping budget put even Gyuvin’s to shame.
Of course, Ricky’s growing proximity to Gyuvin made Gyuvin the number one object of his human studies.
When Gyuvin came home from the gym sweaty, Ricky traced his cold fingers along Gyuvin’s forehead, smearing the beads along his hairline. Gyuvin counted his blessings that Ricky didn’t have a sense of smell, because he had a sneaking suspicion he would’ve tried to smell him if he could’ve gotten anything out of it.
He loved when Gyuvin cried, too. Mostly Gyuvin only ever cried at sad movies, but once, when Gyuvin got a little teary-eyed at a photo his mother sent of Eumppappa, and just how grey her little snout had gotten over the past year, Ricky stared at him with a surprising intensity, like he couldn’t quite make sense of it.
“If my servo motors got worn out and my joints started creaking, would you be sad?” Ricky asked earnestly.
When Gyuvin burst into loud, ugly sobs, Ricky kissed him for the first time.
———
One night, when Ricky was sleeping over, so to speak, at Gyuvin’s apartment, they cuddled up in bed together. The hard edges of Ricky’s frame pressed almost painfully into Gyuvin’s soft gut, but he couldn't bring himself to care, not with his head resting on Ricky’s broad chest. He didn’t have any heartbeat inside, but his body buzzed with life in a different way. His panelling was cold against Gyuvin’s cheek at first, even through his tank top, but after a while Gyuvin’s body heat warmed him up, too.
Gyuvin let his hand trail down from Ricky’s chest to ghost over the front of his pants, where his cock would be if he had one. He knew by then Ricky didn’t, but it still felt strange and unfamiliar when he brought the weight of his hand down and there was nothing there. Gyuvin sucked in a shaky breath regardless.
“Can you feel that?” he asked.
“No. Well, yes, technically,” Ricky clarified, “But not any more than anywhere else.”
Gyuvin rubbed at the fabric there, anyway. Ricky didn’t say anything but his chest hummed and whirred loudly under Gyuvin’s ear. Gyuvin wondered if Ricky wore any briefs underneath his pants. Maybe he did, for the sake of fashion. Maybe, when Ricky pulled them on in the morning, he wondered if Gyuvin would think he looked good in them.
“If you can’t feel it, then why are you making so much noise?” Gyuvin teased.
“It’s the…” Ricky hesitated, “the meaning of it, that you want me to feel something. That feels good, too.”
Gyuvin’s heart fluttered and his stomach twisted. He prayed that Ricky couldn’t feel the way his own cock was chubbing up against Ricky's hip.
“I do…” he breathed out, “I want to make you feel good.”
“I could show y—“ Ricky stopped himself, chuckling awkwardly. “Ah, nevermind.”
Gyuvin sat straight up in an instant, looking down at Ricky in the bed.
“Show me what?”
Ricky couldn’t quite make eye contact. He seemed to be too focused on where he definitely noticed that Gyuvin was half-hard in his pants.
“I could show you what does feel good,” Ricky said simply.
Gyuvin had never agreed to anything so quickly in his life.
With his head back on Ricky's shoulder and Ricky’s hand over the back of his Gyuvin’s, Ricky guided his touch up under the hem of his tank top to his stomach. Gyuvin traced his fingers across the edges of where Ricky’s panels met there, in the hidden away sensitive part of him just where his soft belly would be if he had one. Through the little gaps in between his panels, Gyuvin could feel the heat escaping from inside.
Squeezing his hand under Gyuvin’s, Ricky roughly dug his fingertips just underneath the panel centred on his belly and pulled it open with a pop. Hot air poured out of him, fans running loudly, trying and failing to cool down his insides.
His insides, Gyuvin realised, Ricky wanted Gyuvin’s fingers inside him. Ricky was showing him how, when he was alone, he would put his fingers inside himself when he jerked off, so to speak. Ricky grabbed Gyuvin’s wrist and tugged his hand inside, bumping the tips of his fingers against a bundle of wires that made Ricky let out a small noise.
“Right here,” he said, “Where all of my sensory wiring connects— it feels good when you touch there.”
Gyuvin tangled his fingers into the wires, feeling the way they weaved around his digits. As he circled his fingertips right where they were connected to the inside of him, Ricky made a distinctly inhuman noise like Gyuvin had never heard before.
“Like that,” he said, voice gone slightly garbled and glitchy, “Y-you can— You can pull, too.”
Grabbing onto the wires there and tugging gently, Gyuvin was too pleased with himself when Ricky's legs twitched and Ricky’s hands fell from where they were holding his wrist limp onto the mattress.
“Harder,” he demanded.
Gyuvin obeyed and Ricky's back nearly arched off the bed with the pleasure of it. Truthfully, Gyuvin never would’ve thought he could be so hopelessly turned on by loud, mechanical noises, like the ones that spilled out of Ricky, but he was. Ricky sounded like a car stalling out, and the sound made Gyuvin’s cock twitch.
“Could you cum like this?” Gyuvin asked softly into his ear. He didn’t even know what it would mean for Ricky to have an orgasm, but he must be able to if it made him feel so intensely.
“Yeah,” Ricky said, “I didn’t know it would feel this different having someone else do it.”
It’s his first time, Gyuvin realised with a truly dangerous level of smugness.
Gyuvin dug his fingers in deeper, pressing them into the gaps inside him. “What do you think about when you do this to yourself? Humans? Boys?”
“Human boys,” Ricky teased, “with big hands.”
Gyuvin could hear the smile on his face.
“You make me so hard,” Gyuvin panted against Ricky's shoulder, puffing out hot breath the same way Ricky vented out hot air around his wrist, trying not to hump against Ricky’s side when there was no fleshy give there to grind into.
“Oh, Gyu,” Ricky moaned, “You really like this?”
He seemed genuinely surprised.
“Ricky, are you kidding me? This is the sexiest thing I've ever seen. I wish I could cum inside you here,” Gyuvin said, wriggling his fingers deeper and yanking up on Ricky’s wiring until Ricky’s legs twitched again, “I promise after I’d spend hours licking every part of you clean.”
Rick laughed incredulously. “That’s disgusting,” he told Gyuvin.
That's what everyone learns their first time, isn’t it? Just how strange and visceral sex can be.
“A bit,” Gyuvin agreed, “I still want it. Don’t you want my tongue inside, too?”
Ricky’s voice stuttered like a skipping CD when he tried to moan out Gyuvin’s name. He stopped moving entirely for a second, body stiffening up except for the way his legs twitched. Gyuvin didn’t stop moving his hand until Ricky batted at his wrist to push it away.
“Did you ju—”
Gyuvin was interrupted by Ricky roughly pawing at the front of his pants.
“You said you were hard. You should let me see,” he pouted, “It’s only fair.”
He didn’t need more convincing than that. Gyuvin sat up and sat back on his heels so that he could push his pants down far enough to pull his cock out over his waistband. He stroked himself a few times, just trying to take the edge off the way Ricky stared at him, but it was difficult to stop once he had started.
So close already, it really would've been enough just to cum on Ricky’s tanktop with him watching so intently.
Ricky reached out his hand as if he was going to touch Gyuvin’s cock, but once the reflective metal was in his own eyeline, he seemed to think better of it and pulled his hand away. He gave Gyuvin so much more when he looked up at Gyuvin’s face and, without comment, stuck out his tongue. Gyuvin cursed under his breath, walking on his knees as gracefully as he could so his cock was dangerously close to Ricky’s open mouth.
It was almost embarrassing how quickly Gyuvin came in ropes across Ricky’s face, mostly landing on his plump lips and his waiting tongue and even on his small front teeth. It only made him look prettier… and more human for sure.
Ricky smacked his mouth open and closed a few times but he never swallowed any of the mess down. He couldn’t, maybe, Gyuvin wasn’t sure. He wiped the cum off Ricky’s mouth with his hands, lazily smearing it on his own bed sheets. He even tried to scoop out the little bit of cum that pooled on Ricky’s tongue with his thumb.
“I wish I had taste buds,” Ricky said.
It made Gyuvin’s whole body shiver.
“You can’t say things like that, Ricky,” Gyuvin joked, “My human body is too weak. I can’t take it.”