Kris dumps the entire container of powered spices into the pot.
Tao takes a step back. “What’d you do that for? Making it spicier won’t make you taste it more if you can’t.” Kris takes a larger sip, wincing when the temperature of his mouth approaches an uncomfortable level. He feels the heat of the water but his mouth can’t process the taste.
“I’m going to regret doing this but,” Tao angles Kris’ pot closer to him and, using a spoon, brings a small quantity of the broth to his lips.
The spoon hits the floor the moment after it hits his tongue. With a gurgled noise, Tao runs to the faucet and sticks his head under it, repeatedly washing his mouth over and over. “I…I think I just saw Hell…” he says when he’s calmed down.
Kris, still holding the pot, feels a pressing sense of defeat he’ll quickly become accustomed to in the coming months.
Humans can taste. He can’t taste. He’s not human, not yet. Living with a human has made Kris realize it’s hard…trying to pretend to be like Tao and then realizing he’s not. Tao sleeps every night, usually after hours of fiddling around on his computer. He retreats to bed with dark circles down to his cheeks and collapses, pulling himself into an easy sleep.
Kris doesn’t need sleep.
As one of the more efficient models, he only needs charging once a week and while Tao sleeps, Kris sits and listens to Tao’s heartbeat. In the darkness of the early morning in the corner of Tao’s room, Kris is hunched over in the corner, forehead to his knees.
Tao sleeps heavily and loud; Kris memorizes the intensity and frequency of Tao’s heart every night. Kris has something akin to a heart near his central processor but it’s not the same. It makes no noise as a real heart does. With Tao’s heartbeat surrounding him, Kris can pretend he is hearing his own heart in his own human chest.
Their first true “boyfriend” contact comes three weeks into their acquaintanceship. Tao comes home fuming, throwing his backpack against the floor and kicking at the couch.
“What is wrong?” Kris inquires, eyes on Tao’s tense figure.
“I don’t get it!” Tao yells, throwing his hands in the hair. “What’s a guy have to do to get someone else’s attention? Why won’t he look at me? Why?”
The ‘he’ here is Byun Baekhyun. Kris doesn’t know too much about Byun Baekhyun but lately he is all Tao talks about. The frequency of which Byun Baekhyun is mentioned in passing has risen from ten perfect to thirty three percent in the last week alone. Kris has been counting.
“Am I really that ugly, Kris?” Tao asks. “Am I really so fucking despicable that my own best friend of how many years doesn’t want me?” He looks down at his shoes, idly kicking at the couch. “I hate this. I hate liking someone who won’t look at me the same way. It makes me feel like crap, like I’m not good enough…but I am, right? I’m good enough.”
Kris’ internal computers have little to do with him taking Tao into his arms. He’s seen this on another television show in which the protagonist cried and her boyfriend held to her until she subsided. Humans like to be held. Tao doesn’t resist and wraps his arms around Kris’ mid-section,
