I spent the rest of my workday in a sort of daze. My body sat at the desk and my fingers typed. My face probably seemed very professional, but internally, I was running diagnostics on a system I hadn't realized was still operational.
I tried everything: mental resets, breathing exercises, even that app Juno once forced onto my phone that plays whale sounds and reminds you to unclench your jaw every twenty minutes. Nothing worked.
"System Check: Still online. Still romantic. Still hopeful!"
I opened a new document and stared at that damn cursor looking back at me.
"Would you like to submit feedback?"
"Options:
1. This system is emotionally invasive.
2. This is not a dating sim.
3. HELP."
I selected 3. Nothing happened.
By the time I made it home, I had convinced myself that this was either a stress induced event or the result of the barista slipping something into my drink. My apartment was still as I left it: tidy, quiet, exactly maintained in order to optimize efficiency.
And then I walked into the kitchen and found Juno sitting on the counter, barefoot, eating cold noodles out of a cup.
"Oh god" he said, chewing. "You're glitching."
"I'm what?"
"Your face. There's something wrong with it. Either you've developed an emotion or you've been hacked."
"Neither" I said, moving around him to fetch the kettle and pour water in it. I did not need whatever this was. I needed to reinstall my internal firewall and forget that a man named Min Jae existed.
Juno narrowed his eyes. "Wait. You're doing the staring thing."
"I'm not doing anything."
"You are." He droped off the counter and moved towards me like he was inspecting a broken object.
"Who is it?"
"No one."
"Wrong" Juno leaned in. "Tell me."
I took a slow breath and said "Someone bumped into me this morning and my system rebooted."
"Okay..." Some weird form of nodding followed and then a loud sip from the noodles cup.
"It identified him as a romantic proximity trigger."
There was a long silence after that, then Juno blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"
"User confession detected! Sharing is healing!"
I groaned. Loudly.
Juno nearly dropped his noodles. "You got picked up by HEART.OS? That's the one with the… with the emoji kinda UI and the drama soundtrack songs, right?"
"It just popped up out of nowhere" I replied. "I didn't authorize anything. It just appeared."
"Oh my god" he whispered. "You're living the plot of one of those dating app dramas. This is incredible."
"I'm not living any plot. I'm surviving a software malfunction."
"Correction: Living, laughing, and loving. Coming soon!"
Juno was practically glowing. "What's he like? Is he hot? I bet he's hot."
"He's... tall." I regretted saying it immediately.
"Ohoho."
"He has this look. Like he's always in on a joke no one told me."
"Ohohoho."
"Stop doing that."
He leaned back against the fridge. "Okay. So, you met your match. Your system rebooted and now you're emotionally compromised. And you're doing that thing where you pace while pretending you're not emotionally compromised. What's the next move?"
"There is no next move. I'm uninstalling the system."
"Good luck. That thing's stickier than gum."
I looked at Juno confused. "What do you mean good luck?"
"HEART.OS doesn't come with an uninstall function. It actually learns from rejection: the more you try to delete it, the more features it unlocks."
"It's true! I'm growth-oriented!"
"I hate everything."
Juno grinned. "Just talk to him again. Once the system realizes it was a false alarm, it'll cool down right?"
I nodded slowly, considering his theory. Yes, it actually made sense: talk to him, disprove the logic, prove it was inaccurate to begin with. I could survive that.
--------
It took less than 48 hours for the universe to betray me.
On Thursday, I walked into a client meeting five minutes late and discovered that the consultant we were onboarding for our app project was, in fact, Min Jae.
He was wearing a white shirt rolled at the sleeves and had a laptop that looked way too cool. He looked up when I walked in and said, "Oh hey. Coffee guy."
"Proximity trigger reactivated. Welcome to Attempt Two!"
"Min Jae will be working with us on the UI redesign" my boss explained cheerfully, unaware of the emotional atomic bomb exploding somewhere inside me. "He's got a great eye for design and he's very good at understanding user behavior."
I sat down across from him, carefully. "So this is your job?"
"This week it is" he said. "Last week I was helping launch a dating app. This week, apparently, I'm supposed to fix your user flow issues."
"Oh, the irony" the system whispered. "So much potential!"
He smiled. "Still drinking your coffee without sugar?"
"How do you remember that?" I asked, before I could stop myself.
"It was cute" he replied.
The word hit me like a syntax error.
"New variable added: Embarrassment."
"System reaction: flushed ears, tight jaw, minor pupil dilation."
"Would you like to suppress emotional response?"[Y/N]"
I coughed. "Let's talk about the UI."
Min Jae tilted his head slightly, still smiling, and leaned forward. "Sure. But just so you know... you're blushing."
I wasn't, I absolutely wasn't!
I think.