rewrite the stars - jaywon

chapter 26

Jungwon guessed his parents were trying to be understanding. After the first time, they hadn't sent Jay to fetch him to come down for dinner again. Jungwon frowned. Though, he supposed, if his parents actually cared about being understanding they wouldn't have erased Jay to begin with.

Jungwon set down his tablet, kneading his aching eyes. Burying himself head deep in his schoolwork wasn't helping to distract him from Jay at all. Sunghoon had sent him a text earlier, tentatively, asking a vague "everything good?". Jungwon had just responded with a thumbs up.

He looked at his phone, at the dark screen. Sunghoon was probably burning with curiosity, if he'd managed to get over his guilt enough to message Jungwon.

A knock at Jungwon's door. He was almost tempted to act as if he'd already fallen asleep, and couldn't hear it. Almost.

"It's unlocked."

The door opened, and Jay walked through without pause, without asking if he could. Jungwon bit his lip, readjusting how he was seated on his bed, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Jay was holding a plate.

"Your mother asked me to bring you food," Jay said, and Jungwon didn't doubt it. This Jay wouldn't do anything he hadn't been explicitly ordered to do.

"Oh. Thanks," Jungwon said.

There was an awkward moment. A one-sided awkward moment, at last, because Jay probably couldn't sense the shift in atmosphere. Only Jungwon. For a moment, Jay said and did nothing and Jungwon said and did nothing. Jay before the wipe would have laughed, said something just as awkward and endearing that somehow would've filled the moment, warmed it.

This Jay just stood there.

"You can put the plate on my desk," Jungwon said, finally, when the awkward tension in the air grew to an almost palpable weight on his chest.

Jay immediately nodded and did as he was told. Jungwon's discomfort wasn't alleviated. If anything, he just felt more uneasy. Jay had just been waiting for an order, that's all that moment was. So why had it felt so loaded?

Jungwon waited until after Jay had closed the door behind him, leaving without any parting words, to move. He untucked his feet from under himself and walked over his desk, stomach growling.

He pressed his hand to his stomach, to silence it. Then looked at what Jay had brought him. A plate of green apple slices, arrayed in a circle.

Jungwon picked the plate up, just looking at it, frozen at the sight. His heart lurched. Then, he dashed outside his room, plate in hand. Thankfully, Jay had only reached the hallway's end.

"Jay!" he shouted.

Jay stopped, paused. He turned, minutely, only enough that his next words would be perfectly audible to Jungwon.

"My designation is model gamma-eight-six-five-seven, jay three."

"I know, " Jungwon said, impatient, "and I still don't care."

He raised the plate, indicating its contents, "Did my mom tell you to bring me an apple?"

He probably sounded crazy. He definitely felt crazy, desperately questioning a blank-faced robot about the choice of snack he'd brought up to him.

"No."

In the unlit hallway, Jay's reflective eyes stood out as the primary source of light, two unchanging opals flashing in the dark.

"Then, why did you...?" Jungwon trailed off, looking back down to the plate of apple slices.

When he looked back up, Jay was gone.

Jungwon drew back into his room, closing the door softly shut behind him. He frowned, then took a bite of one of the apple slices. His frown deepened. A tart taste, sour enough to make his lips pucker then, just as he was about to swallow, a rush of sugary sweet.

⭐

Jungwon lay in bed, long past when he had turned out the lights. He couldn't fall asleep. His thoughts were going wild.

He shifted, rolling over onto his side to stare at the plate, empty, on his desk.

Jungwon reached for his phone, and opened up an incognito window. He tried to think of some way to phrase what he was thinking, some short composition of words that could encompass everything that Jay was, before Jungwon's parents had gotten him wiped, and everything Jay was after.

He frowned, as he typed in ' bot remembering things after reset'. That sucked. It'd have to do.

Jungwon thumbed through the results, past the news articles, the headlines about the increasing number of androids being brought back to stores for resets. Past an ad listing, one barely even related to his search, just reading 'Bot acting up? We'll look into it!'.

Finally, he found a forum post, a question from a user who was concerned about their robot remembering things even after they'd taken them for a reset.

user028302 asked: Hypothetically, if a bot witnessed an event and was then subsequently reset, would the bot still retain any memories of said event?

hawksrock answered: lol did ur bot see u off someone? wicked

Jungwon felt a twist in his gut. People were awful. And maddeningly unhelpful. Jungwon scrolled further down the forum page, to the next answers.

MissEffie36 answered: Your android won't be able to recall anything prior to their reset. Their memory storage is solely offline. Source: I interned at one of those big companies for a couple years

trumann_ answered: no. this is literally the fourth question on hybe tech's faq page... link: https://www.hybetech.com/frequently-asked-questions.html

Jungwon felt something deep within him, as he clicked through the link to HYBE Tech's website. The answer confirmed what the forum users had already said. There was no way robots could remember things if they had been reset.

Jungwon sighed, staring down at his phone screen. He probably was going crazy, then. The apple meant nothing. Jungwon was just grasping at straws.

— the end of chapter 26 ♡

i feel so sad for jungwon :(