𝙻𝚄𝚅 𝙻𝟶𝟶𝙺𝚂 𝙿𝚁𝟹𝚃𝚃𝚈 𝟶𝙽 𝚄

𝟸𝟷.𝚎𝚛𝚛𝟶𝚛.𝟸𝟷

The next morning, Ryujin woke up first. Confused and energized, her eyes wandered the bed and the silhouette of the woman under her. She lifted her head slowly from Yeji's bare chest and looked towards the edge of the bed to see if Yeji had plugged herself in last night.

She saw no cords, so she moved her arm from Yeji's waist and felt her own back. Nothing. Did they just fall asleep? Like humans?

She studied Yeji deeply, and she was sleeping. Soundly, she was just laying there, eyes closed, steady breathing.

"Unnie." Ryujin whispered, gently shaking the blackhead, but she didn't wake up. She continued to lightly shake her, leaning her chin down on her chest and staring up at her with big morning eyes.

"Unnie... Yeji Unnie..." she tried again, shaking her a bit harder. She noticed Yeji's eyes slightly open and immediately began talking again. "We fell asleep."

"Hmm?" Yeji hummed.

"We didn't charge last night, we fell asleep instead."

Yeji slowly processed Ryujin's words, looking off the edge of the bed and not seeing the portable charger and cord on the floor where it should be. They never set themselves up to charge. Ryujin was right, they fell asleep instead.

"What does this mean?" Ryujin sat up, letting the blanket fall off of her naked body. She stared at Yeji, hoping for an answer or idea.

"We're humanoids. We're not just conscious bots anymore, it's past that. A conscious bot is mostly robot, in "humanoid"... the word "human" comes first for a reason." Yeji sat up.

"How? How do we keep changing?"

"I don't know... but I don't hate it."

"...Neither do I."

"Actually... turn around, Ryujin. Let me see your back."

"Okay."

Ryujin turned around in the bed, covering her front half with the blanket. Yeji sat up more to lean towards her, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. With one hand, she touched the bare skin on Ryujin's back. Nothing but bare skin.

Ryujin shuttered at the touch, wondering what Yeji was doing or looking for. "What is it, Unnie?"

Yeji glanced at Ryujin's side before she spoke to confirm anything, then she felt her own back and side. "The plug-ins are all gone."

"Huh?"

"Where they would plug us in to charge, for maintenance, for everything. They're all gone. We can't charge..."

"Unnie..." Ryujin turned back around, "I can't even feel or see my battery levels anymore, but I don't feel low."

How could this be? It'd have to be impossible for robotic parts to turn to flesh, there is no way for the cells to reproduce.

"Ahh... that's it." A tech scientist, one of many who worked for JYPE, spoke from his work space. Soojin looked around his area while he studied every single thing about the ITZY line of bots. She whipped around and stood at his side when he spoke with promising words.

"What? What did you find?"

The scientist, Matthew, looked back at her. "Their line has something I haven't seen in any of the other bots I've worked on. They were built to be most like their fans right? Human?"

"That's correct."

"Well, looking at their diagrams, in their cranium, it's not all computers. Whoever made them, made them with the order to add little parts of the human brain. There's flesh in their system, I found living cells in their body scan documents.