progress; {self}
“How have you been doing, Dongho?”
The engineer smiled pleasantly at the love doll across his desk, a generic steel piece hidden under piles of designs and paperwork he’d long ago forgotten to organize. He always found it easier to dig through his own mess to find specific designs, and he found the untidiness somewhat conducive to his creativity. His only fear was that it would have a negative influence on the doll that was frequently in his office for his mandatory consultations. He’d spent so much time designing and nurturing the doll to buyer-ready perfection, he’d hate for his own bad habits to push the doll in the wrong direction.
“Have you been keeping up with your studies?”
He hummed in assent. The engineer noticed him fidgeting, his knee bouncing impatiently like he was holding himself down. That was new. Dongho was usually very well-behaved during their sessions, albeit a bit apathetic. He didn’t seem unhappy, but there certainly appeared to be something on his mind. He jotted a few notes down on a pad of yellow paper and continued.
“Any interesting observations recently? New emotions? New friends?”
“What does love feel like?”
The abruptness of the question startled him, but he quickly scribbled it down, smiling to himself at the pleasant surprise.
“I, uh, I can’t say for sure. Humans don’t really have it figured out either. It might be different for everyone.”
Dongho seemed disappointed at the answer, his brief moment of hopefulness disappearing into a thoughtful scowl.
“Why do you ask, Dongho?”
“I…Met someone.”
He chuckled lightly at the slight cringe on the love doll’s face, likely at the cheesiness of the phrase. His pencil scratched quietly across yellow paper at the sight of artificially reddening cheeks. That was definitely new.
“A human?”
Dongho pursed his lips at that, frowning and shaking his head, apparently confused at this.
“Another doll? Someone like you?”
“Mm. At first I hated him…”
“Him?”
A nod of confirmation. More rapid pencil scratching. The engineer smiled slightly to himself; his creation never failed to surprise.
“Go on.”
“He was rude and…and arrogant. I hated him so much. He was just like…”
“Just like what, Dongho?” he gently prodded, though he knew the answer himself. The doll shook his head and continued.
“But then…I don’t know, it was weird. Like something out of the TV.”
“Like your dramas?”
Dongho seemed reluctant to answer now, almost bashful in his expression, but he nodded nonetheless.
“What’s his name?”
“Minki.”
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He shut the door gently behind the love doll after another half hour or so of routine and rather uneventful questioning. He plopped back into his chair, swiveling it unconsciously as he flipped back through his notes, frowning deeply in thought. Mostly, Dongho seemed to be developing at a decent rate. He had yet to hear of incidents of a lost temper, but his social skills, especially with elders, still seemed to be a bit lacking. He made a note to increase the doll’s manners and etiquette training, but made an even bigger note of Dongho’s rapid developments in intelligence and empathy.
He turned his chair around to face the glaring screen of his laptop to type up the report, their conversation about the blonde love doll with a pretty face in the forefront of his mind. It worried him that Dongho had found himself attached to another product that would likely be sold soon and forget about him entirely. Love dolls weren’t meant to experience heartbreak, but it seemed inevitable at this point. What worried him more was the apparent development of a complex and conflicted psyche, one that was self-aware, or rather self-loathing. He deliberately left that part out of the report, sighing inwardly as his selfishness as his fingers danced across black Chiclet keys. He definitely preferred the slight guilt of omitting bits and pieces of information to the mocking scrutiny of his peers.
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Dongho’s daydreams were confusing now. Before, he caught quick glances in his mind of long black hair or a pretty white dress in the wind. Sometimes there was a beach. He didn’t know why but this figure (whose face he never saw, her back was always to him; but she was always smiling, somehow he knew she was smiling) seemed so very familiar. Only now sometimes her hair was blonde, would flicker between the two mid-dream; sometimes he knew she was smirking not smiling; sometimes she was in red or pink instead of white. Sometimes there wasn’t a beach at all. Then she’d turn, almost turn, the slightest bit of her profile blocked by the sunlight flaring in his line of sight, before she’d vanish. There was always that bit of anger when she disappeared, red hot but fleeting, dissipating in a split second and leaving him as in the dark as he was before. The man in the white coat still didn’t know about the woman in the white dress. She was still his and nobody else’s and he liked to think it made him a bit more human. She was his, whoever she was, and the men in the white coats with all their yellow notes and white rooms and questions couldn’t change that.
