[Fic] Humanoids [1/?]
Prologue: The Beginning of a Dream
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"And here they are! The beautiful girls of BCD and their new release Love 101."
Eight tall, slim young women fluttered to stage with their glittering costumes and shining accessories. Each girl was beautiful, almost unnaturally so, and their movements carried the grace of a ballerina. It was impossible to find a physical defect on any of the eight. Their faces were perfectly in balance with their body shapes and their bodies were the wet dream of any man, twenty five to seventy five.
"All I want….is your love. Are you ready?"
They smiled at the camera and all over the world, men and women alike fell for the twinkle in their eyes. The fans cheered as the music started and the girls began their flawless performance.
"For Love 101!"
There was no other word for their stage. It was flawless. It was perfect. It was completely in sync even with all eight. The vocal quality of the performance was stunning. Everything was sung live and everything sounded just like or even better than the studio version. Reaching each and every note with ease while dancing to their medium tempo song, they repeated each performance without errors.
BCD was nothing less perfect and they were born that way. Simply but probably more accurately, they were made that way.
---
"BCD's Hyojung is hot beyond belief," Park Yoochun cooed, turning the pages of newly issued magazine. "Is she even human?"
"Technically, she's not," Kim Jaejoong responded, doodling on the side of his notebook. "None of them are."
"That was a rhetorical question," Yoochun grumbled, going back to the magazine. "Oh Hyojung!"
"Dork," Jaejoong mumbled. He didn't look up from his doodles and honestly, he didn't want to. No matter where he looked, there would be some BCD goods somewhere. Walking down the street, the faces of eight hauntingly beautiful idols would stare him down from a poster or a LED screen or even a bus!
School was just a conglomerate of fanclubs for each of the eight individual idols. Basically full of Hyojung worshippers, BCD crazies and then there's him, the only teenage boy in the whole school--and maybe world--who didn't care for these eight beautiful females. Damn, no wonder they called him gay, now that he thinks about it.
Jaejoong frowns slightly but his doodle creation was done. While not particularly artsy, he still manages to smile at the crudely drawn stick figures. It wasn't the artwork itself that made him smile like an idiot, but what it represented.
A little figure stood on a non-straight stage with a microphone. The crooked spotlight was on it and it was smiling because all the other figure people loved it. The little figure would sing and dance and it wouldn't be perfect but that was okay. All the other little figure people would see the effort, the heart and the human his little figure was.
Just as he can see Jaejoong looks up and the eight lovely nonhuman faces of BCD stared back at him from Yoochun's magazine cover.
He scribbles out his doodle. Who was he kidding? Him? An idol? Not in this day and age.
---
In this day and age, technology had surpassed whatever predictions humans two hundred years ago had made. While there were no space vehicles capable of warp drive, scientists have gone above and beyond in biological and genetic sciences.
Now, connecting one's conscious to a virtual reality was commonplace. People went shopping in virtual malls inside their own rooms, just like what used to be called the internet shopping. Birthing a child was as easy as baking a cake, genetic information and a test tube. A couple could even purchase an at home kit at their closest biotech pharmacy and create their child on their own time.
While making a child was easy, selecting genetic information was still a newer field. It meant taking apart the chromosomes and rearranging them so they would express the traits desired. It wasn't completely impossible--with where technology has gone, it felt like anything imaginable was doable--but it was risky and costly.
There were prototypes, failed ones and successful ones, and these people were protected. They were hidden from the public in fear of discrimination--they were different, unnatural and too easy to blame. In Korea, it wasn't until eight female idols of BCD came out that other genetic modifiees found it safe at last.
By the time Kim Jaejoong got into high school, all the genetic modifiees--also called GMs or gems, in street slang--were out in the open and revered.
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"Are you sure this is what you want to do?"
Jung Yunho sighed. Would he have insisted to this extent if he weren't sure? But he understood why they were hesitant. He touched his necked uncertainly, feeling the smooth muscles underneath the tips of his fingers. Yunho's had some difficulties over the years which made them very nervous.
"Yes, I'm quite sure," he answered with a smile.
They seemed unwilling but didn't attempt to dissuade him. Yunho knows they mean the best. He was almost their son, their youngest. And the youngest one is always the hardest to let go.
So when they ran their last procedural tests, Yunho was as compliant as possible.
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Another audition. Another failure.
Jaejoong closed his eyes and resisted the urge to scream. Once again, his application had been rejected. During his singing audition, the judges looked upon him favorably. During his interview, they smiled all until they saw two words on his paperwork.
Natural Born.
He wasn't a GM. Apparently, the interviewers had expected him to be one. Anyone else would have been flattered to have been thought to be gem. Anyone but Kim Jaejoong.
He didn't want to be associated with those half manufactured humans! Sure, he couldn't replicate a perfect performance every single time. Sure, he couldn't look perfect every single moment of the day--
"Stop!"
Jaejoong flinched as a finger poked him in the cheek.
"Stop thinking about it," his best friend said happily. Yoochun tossed a bottle of juice to his musing friend. "It was a small agency anyways."
"A small agency I can't get into," Jaejoong retorted bitterly. It had only been an hour since the failure audition and the wounds were still fresh in Jaejoong's mind. He unscrewed the cap viciously and gulped down the juice, finishing half the bottle.
"Hey, calm down alright?" Yoochun cooed in English.
"No."
"Alright, alright," Yoochun laughed, bonking Jaejoong's head. "But seriously, would you have been okay in a small agency that couldn't helped you anywhere?"
Jaejoong was silent, so silent that Yoochun almost didn't catch the mumbled, "No."
"Thought so," Yoochun grins. "How about we aim higher this time, hyung?"
"Higher?"
"Jaejoong-hyung, how many auditions have you been to?" Yoochun asked, seemingly out of the blue.
It took Jaejoong a moment but he did respond, "Thirty-three?"
"How did you even find thirty-three talent agencies?" Yoochun asked, scrunching his nose. Jaejoong opened his mouth of answer but Yoochun interrupted quickly. "That's not my point though, but think about it. What kind of agencies were they? Think size and reputation."
"They were relatively small and unknown?"
"Exactly," Yoochun exclaimed. "Hyung, is that really what you want? To be apart of a small and unknown agency and become a small and unknown idol?"
"So I should audition at SM Entertainment and become the male version of BCD's Hyojung?" Jaejoong scoffs. "Don't get drunk in the middle of the day, friend."
"Why not?"
Jaejoong stared at his best friend for a long moment. Three thousand thoughts ran through his head but his mouth just gapped soundlessly. Did Yoochun understand what he just proposed? SM Entertainment was probably the most notorious talent agency which screened auditions using genetic modification as a requirement. Well, that was illegal, but it didn't mean they had a preference for GMs.
BCD was SM Entertainment standard. So it was really no wonder that SM was the largest and most famous talent agency in South Korea.
"I know what you're thinking," Yoochun said gently. His voice lowered from his originally cheery high. They've been friend's long enough for Jaejoong to know Yoochun was dead serious. "But answer this, do you want to stand on stage?"
"Of course I do," Jaejoong whispers. He wanted it more than anything else. He knew he lived for the stage. The moment he stood on a tiny stage for a elementary school performance, Jaejoong knew he belonged there. His heartbeat faster for the stage than for any girl he's ever met.
"Will you give it up?"
"Never."
---
Yoochun smiled at the answer. There was no hesitation or any moment of pause. He wasn't even sure if Jaejoong had completely processed the question before answering. He probably only heard 'stage' and 'give up', not that Yoochun was surprised.
"Good," Yoochun said, snapping Jaejoong out of his daze. "Would you like me to tell you a secret then?"
"Are you going to get me into SM Entertainment?"
"Of course," Yoochun said with a sly smile. He rolled the juice bottle between his hands leisurely. "Would you like to hear an interesting rumor?"
"Alright," Jaejoong bit out rather reluctantly. Yoochun could see the suspicion in those eyes--the eyes of someone who's identified a conman--and the older boy would have probably walked away if it weren't for Yoochun's best friend status.
"You know I'm friends with a lot of gem trainees," Yoochun says, waving his friend closer. To an outsider, they might look like two gossiping schoolgirls, but Yoochun was all about the comedic factor. "I heard a rumor about an SM trainee."
"Uh-huh," Jaejoong nodded.
"And they say that he's one of the best trainee's the company has had in years," Yoochun whispered conspiratorially. He paused for dramatic effect. "He's a natural born."
The was a long stretch of silence. Shoes clicked on the concrete sidewalks, cars honked on the asphalt road, bicycles ringed on their merry way, and two boys blinked at each other on the bus stop's bench. It was a calm before the storm and Yoochun was eager to welcome the raging winds.
"You're telling me that this trainee has randomly, naturally selected DNA and managed to make it on the top trainee list of SM Entertainment, notorious for picking only genetically modifiees," Jaejoong rambled. "Do you understand what you're insinuating? Someone who has somehow gotten the perfect randomized selection of DNA."
"And how can you prove that?" Yoochun interrupted before Jaejoong could continue going.
"Prove that? Tests? Performance proves everything, otherwise--"
"Oh, hyung," Yoochun laughs. "You pretend to be such a bad boy, but you're such a fair player."
"Huh?"
"What if this trainee doesn't have the preferred genetics? What if this trainee pretends to be a GM?" Yoochun questioned. He leaned forward with each question and his smile only got sneakier. "What if this trainee faked his genetically modifiee registration license?"
Jaejoong opened his mouth then closed it. He licked his lips and opened his mouth again. It took a moment before his lips thinned to a line again.
Yoochun merely let’s the information sink in. He knows Jaejoong's question and honestly, that had been his question when he first heard of it. In fact, when he met said trainee, Yoochun had been rather surprised. This trainee didn't seem like the type to try anything like that.
Isn't faking a GM license illegal?
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A/N: I am alive. Finally. This was something that popped up while I was listening to Humanoids and Android. Urg, feels like I regressed several grades in writing but I swear I'll work it up back to speed
Things have gone crazy in my life but as I once said, I probably write better under stress anyways.
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