you (or something else)
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the thing that differentiates humans to human androids is the heart.
note: this is a human android au (that au is not originally mine); this was written in Ate Elle’s prompt of otp listening to each other’s heartbeat but i got away with it hahaha okay i havent written a kathniel fic in like forever
There are only 3 things Kathryn would like to keep in her next lifetime if she had a chance: one are blue cheesecakes, two the whole song list for Bon Iver's album For Emma and third human androids.
The third came one Sunday night with a bucket of chicken wings and red converse shoes as she tried to do a whole marathon of the latest America's Next Top Model cycle. It wasn't all that great without the real Tyra Banks distributing pictures but technology clones are too clony that you wouldn't doubt it if you haven't known cloning is even possible.
"Kath! Come here, help me assemble this human android I just bought."
Or things like human androids do exist.
"I don't know why we even need to have a human android mom." She says picking up the tablet for instructions in setting up the thing.
She knows human androids are the trends today but she has lost all the time to even bother following trends when she has 5 exams all scheduled in a single week and when she still have all bones to order a bucket of mojos from the restaurant. If you're still capable of doing that with that hell of a college life, then you're good.
"We need this until you start cleaning up your room and help me do the accounts for our store." Her mom replies chucking her the automation number for android activation - a few clicks and buttons and woola, human android all set up.
She had a pretty good excuse for the mess in her room and not doing accounts because she loathes math and hates cleaning but if her mom thinks it would help solve the problem then maybe human androids could help solve The Mom Problem (and her math exercises if she's allowed to do that).
"Hello, I'm Daniel Ms. Bernardo's. I'll do my best to serve you."
Kath and her mom shares a momentarily silence before Kath says "Okay, clean up the living room." and human android with a name Daniel moves and picks up the cartons where his unactivated body lied first (or pieces of metals and wirings stored in a human form).
"Oh shit" Kath utters when Daniel doesn't even stop to blink until he finishes cleaning the living room as she told. The room more organized than it ever was before.
"Don't curse young lady. I told you it's about time we had one."
The thing about human androids that she wanted to keep them in her next lifetime is more than just because of convenience. Well yes they’re really helpful when you have papers due at the same time of your laboratory exams, or when your schedule is so tight you can't have enough time to buy yourself food and you’re so hungry, human androids are really great at helping people with things like that.
But here's the thing that happened way back on Kath's hell of a finals week that made her decide she'd want to keep human androids for as long as she could. With 8 exams on a single week scheduled one after another, and an addition of a research paper to finish, Kath didn’t get to have a time for sleep other than 15 minute naps every 3 hours for the whole 5 days. Technology still haven't touched the human's body for the peace between the scientific world and The Heavens, so Kath's body collapses in the middle of the university grounds after her last exam. Kathryn after all is a fragile human being.
Daniel picks her up from the clinic and makes her soup, checks her temperature every hour and then, plays her favorite Bon Iver album from decades back when she hasn't told anybody about it ever before. When she woke up at midnight later, there's Daniel holding a plate of blue cheesecake and a bucket of mojos staring at her with loving eyes as he smiles and asks "Are you feeling better?" in a soft voice almost far from the monotonous robot sound he makes that it convinces her for awhile that he's a real human and not something that was made inside a laboratory. He asked her like he was concerned, and concern is an emotion she knows he never has.
Human androids are largely different with real humans because of their lack of ability to present as real fragile emotions that humans can. Their ability to respond and project a mood is something that is bound from the compiled process of emotions under psychology, their exhibition of emotions like sadness or happiness or a sense of accomplishment are processed, shows in the surface if certain conditions are met. In short, their emotions are not close to real. But when Daniel touches her forehead, everything feels almost too unimaginably real.
She calls it imagination the next day when she wakes up yet again to Daniel tucking her to bed saying "Sleep more, you don't have finals to study." She calls it an imagined shojou manga, an episode of a korean drama, a wild good dream as she allows her hand to slip onto his wrist and tell him "This is real right?" and Daniel replying to him "Right."
Another thing that differentiates humans from human androids is the human heart. Human androids don't have hearts, just a connection of wires that lead into a single power bank that holds the actions they perform. Humans however have one connected to the rest of their body by different blood vessels, and they beat 100000 times a day, 2.5 billion times a whole lifetime.
Daniel becomes a daily companion to Kath's waking up routine even after she recovers from the whole collapsing event. Daniel becomes a daily companion to Kath's life coming with her to grocery when she doesn't even ask, holds her elbow when they cross the streets, smiles at her everytime she looks. She has read articles to articles and forums to forums about the extents the human androids can do and what she has found is that love is not a part of it so she asks "Do you know how to know if someone’s inlove?"
"Androids know everything." He says as he finishes paying bills as ordered by Kath's mom.
"So you could tell me what these heart beats mean" She asks taking his hand to her chest "and tell me if they do fall into love like what those stories say?"
He hears the heartbeats, that's what she knows and that he's processing to answer Kath's question, but what Daniel does after is not something she thought he would do.
"Feel mine's first." and he puts her hand to that part right across his chest where a heart should've been of he was human. There's no beating, nothing but heat coming in contact through her skin, and then a sound of his voice saying "Love" pausing "is a wild fire. That's what my system says."
Humans and human androids are largely different because of the human heart. When human hearts decipher love, they beat tremendously, tugging abnormalities that they almost find it hard to catch their breaths, when androids do, they heat up, processes get interrupted and then die out. Love is not something that human androids could possess, love could cause a human android system to die out, that’s what’s not written on the activation manual they give you when you first buy one.
When Kath finds her hand too warm after holding the part where Daniel's system and fake skin meets, she knew what kind of story it would lead into if she'd do the things a human heart (or brain but for the metaphor) would tell her to do so she pushes her hand back and just smiles and that's what all it takes for her human heart to know how love is not something scientists could clone.
The third one out of the three things Kath would want to have in her next lifetime came with chicken wings and red converse shoes, it came like fire, a human android named Daniel. That's what is all.
