Chapter Text
Hyunjin hummed a jaunty little tune to himself as he flittered from streetlamp to streetlamp. He zipped around on the beams of light, fluid like mist, swirling around the bulbs like the gnats and mosquitoes. The streets were blissfully empty for once – usually, there were still a few groups of drunkards wandering around this area, bellowing out slurred songs at the top of their lungs while stumbling over each other. One very memorable time, Hyunjin followed alongside the shadows of two girls that had snuck out of their apartment buildings to rendevouz in the night against their parents’ wishes. He still heard their breathless giggles sometimes in the back of his head, and without fail it always made his wings twitch and sparkle with joy.
Nose twitching, he glanced below himself on the dirty sidewalk. There was a very slight shimmer of gold and red on the concrete – a subtle trail of his fairy dust. He tilted his head a little, but in the end shrugged it off and continued flying. It’s been a few months now of him in this human city, and he’s left his fairy dust all over the place. He hasn’t been caught yet, so he didn’t feel particularly concerned. Chan worried enough for him, anyway.
It was easier traveling in his smaller form than his human-sized one, anyway. Glamor was taxing to keep up so long, and as small as he was naturally, he could simply glide across the rays of light instead of wasting his time walking.
He was learning to enjoy walking quite a bit, to be honest, but he still wouldn’t call it more efficient than flying. He really pitied humans sometimes. Then again, they did invent airplanes…
He continued humming to himself as he zipped to and fro. In the cluster of the slums and with the upper city’s light pollution, it was practically impossible to see the stars even this late at night. Hyunjin often bemoaned this fact and made sure to mention it as often as possible in his journal. However, the city did have numerous lights of its own, albeit artificial. Hyunjin was endlessly fascinated by the fluorescents and neons that dotted the streets and scaled the buildings, casting the city in a multicolor glow that was at odds with the grim greys and brows of the architecture itself. For one, it offered him exciting new ways to flitter between lights that he’d never experienced before in the smooth glow of the sky.
As it stood, the current stand-in title for his journal was The Man-Made Stars of Humankind. He found it poetic.
However, he couldn’t dilly-dally on his nightly exploration of the urban undercity that night like he usually did. He actually had a job to do. A real one! The reminder made an extra poof of fairy dust glitter below him.
Chan had asked him very serious-like if he could go down by the manufacturial landfill to snoop for parts. A gang had popped up that was denying people entrance to the normal landfill, where Chan usually went snooping for materials, and the manufactural dump was private property and thus illegal to get caught in.
If you were a human, anyway. Hyunjin, when not Glamored, was no taller than the palm of Chan’s hand, and had no shortage of tricks and magics to smuggle things out. He’d have to be careful not to touch anything iron with his bare skin, but Jeongin had very pain-stakingly helped him sew some tiny leather protective gear, so he wasn’t very worried. His biggest concern was actually recognizing what he was supposed to be looking for; After all these months of shadowing Chan and Jeongin in their mechanic shop, he liked to think that he wasn’t totally ignorant on human technology, but the list Chan gave him had some pretty big words. And no pictures to help!
The list was in a pouch tucked into his shirt, lying against his chest. It was one of the few things he’d taken with him from his home when he entered the human domain. It was woven with magic to change along with the rest of his appearance when he applied his Glamor. It wasn’t a bottomless pouch, but it was much bigger on the inside than it was on the outside, and it would grow and shrink with him, which was really all that mattered. It was yet another reason why he’d been asked (very reluctantly, as he’d had to practically beg Chan) to do this errand. He paid the elder three times the current going rate for rent for the privilege of crashing in Jeongin’s room at night – which, honestly, Chan hadn’t even wanted him to do that, since Hyunjin always slept in his fairy form anyway – but he still felt useless in the shop itself. He might not be an apprentice the way Jeongin was, but he was there to learn! He wanted to get involved!
He huffed quietly to himself. He could be useful, damnit!
Eventually, he came across a large lot with giant, high-rising wire fencing. It stretched on far and wide, and he caught glimpses of regularly interspersed cameras all lining the top of the fence. There was a large gate and guard station at the front, likely for arriving trucks ready to dispose of the oftentimes expensive materials. Hyunjin smirked and, with a mere twitch of his wings, rode through the light to fly between one of the holes of the fence. He wouldn’t be anything more than a blip of light on the cameras, easily mistaken for a dustmite.
Already, the difference between this and the regular landfill was blatant. The regular dump smelled awful and was dreadfully disorganized, with toxic fumes and the risk of trash landslides everywhere. The manufacturers’ landfill, though, was unnervingly clean, with clear paths between each pile of trash and flood lights keeping the whole place lit up. Hyunjin was truly shocked – he went with Jeongin sometimes to go diving in the dump, and he’d just assumed that all human disposal sites were like that. This one was far more steamlined, though.
He hovered for a moment, taking in the sight. He put his hands on his hips and hummed. “Now, where to look, where to look…”
It took a while for him to comb even a sliver of the landfill. Some points on the list were easily found, while others who totally incomprehensible to him. What the hell was a cadmium pulse capacitor? A tritonic vacuum plate? How the hell was he supposed to collect elbow grease – he didn’t even think humans produced grease! It was pretty disheartening work, and he was rather disappointed in himself for his inability to check off every item on the list. What if Chan didn’t let him go dumpster diving again!?
Hyunjin stood at the top of a trash pile with his Glamor applied, as he’d needed the size earlier to dig through it earlier. He’d found nothing that he recognized, of course. Frustrated, he kicked hard at an empty battery casing, sending it flying through the air. It soared in a high arc and hit the ground with a thunk that echoed loudly. Hyunjin winced, and glanced nervously over his shoulder. He hoped none of the guards heard that.
“Sys… tem…”
His ears twitched as quiet words reached them. He squinted off into the distance in the direction that he’d sent the trash flying. In a little pocket of debris too far from the floodlights to be anything more than an amorphous dark silhouette, he could just barely make out a dull blue glow on the ground. It had definitely not been there before.
Perking up, he removed his Glamor and quickly flew over. By the time he got there, the light had already flickered off. He was truly curious now, though, and determined to find whatever was lying here that was, apparently, not fully busted. And, hey – maybe if he showed up with something high-quality that still worked, then Chan might be impressed! Just the thought of it had fairy dust twinkling onto the ground below.
He flittered down onto the shadowy pile of assorted metals and wires. His wings twitched idly behind him as he settled daintily onto his feet, peering around. He didn’t have night vision like some other fairies, but he did illuminate the surroundings somewhat. If he focused, he could glow just a bit brighter than normal as well. The light from his wings reflected off the shiny metal surfaces of the broken parts and bits that made up the pile. He hopped around carefully, sticking his head into crevices and crawling between the pieces of rubble.
It didn’t take long for his eyes to land on something far, far more interesting than busted bits of machinery. He gasped quietly, wings twitching in interest, as he found himself face to face with… a face.
Oh god, is that a dead body? was his initial thought. Upon closer inspection, though, the face had strange, seamlike lines running across its cheeks and jaw. More noticeably, the face had a giant, gaping hole where one of its eyes should’ve been – except, instead of the usual blood and viscera Hyunjin would have expected a human corpse to produce, it had weakly sparking wires and sharp, jagged metal.
Hyunjin inched a little closer, cautiously. He could only see above the shoulders, with the rest of the body covered by debris. Still, it was very visibly not breathing. He slipped one of his tiny gloves off and hesitantly reached out to poke it. He gasped again – it definitely didn’t feel like skin. It was cold, stiff, and rubbery.
His wings fluttered as he took a hop back, eyeing the… well, it had to be an android. He’s only seen one once, when he first arrived to Seoul. It had been truly startling, and half the reason why he forewent the wealthy part of town to bunker down in the slums. You never saw androids in the slums. The question one – how did one end up here, of all places? No one who owned an android would just… toss them out into the landfill, no matter how busted they got. And this was the manufacturers’ landfill, besides, meant for trash from the factories. Not finished products.
“Where on Earth did you come from, buddy…?” Hyunjin muttered quietly. He gathered some of his fairy dust around his fingers and flicked it as the defunct android.
He jumped when the sparks in its empty eyesocket sparked even brighter. Its other eye suddenly snapped open, casting a faint blue glow over the area. Muffled whirring started up from deeper in the debris pile.
The android’s mouth opened slightly with an uncomfortable creak that made Hyunjin wince. At first, all that came out was a faint static. Then, “Sys… tem… Err… or…” Its voice was crackly and faint.
Hyunjin watched with baited breath as the android’s eye flashed rapidly between blue and red. A thin stream of oil began to drip down from the busted socket as the whirring grew louder and louder until, with a worrisome pop! the sound and lights cut off entirely. In the sudden darkness and silence that followed, Hyunjin could only blink slowly. One of his ears raised, and then the other, as he perked up with a growing excitement.
So… not actually busted, then. That was interesting.
In no time at all, Hyunjin found himself Glamored up, elbows deep in trash as he worked to dig up the rest of the android. He wasn’t fully sure how he’d get the thing out of the dump, since his pouch was in no way large enough to carry it, but he was invested now. Surely, Chan could fix the poor thing up, couldn’t he? And then they’d have a little android buddy! A handsome android buddy too, at that. Its sharp features and brilliant purple hair were to die for, in his opinion. Whoever had designed him deserved a raise!
The more he uncovered of the android, though, the more confused he got. Most of it’s body seemed intact. It had a metal pole sticking through its hips, but it looked to be a result of the debris in the landfill, and not a pre-existing damage to get the thing thrown in. The worst damage that Hyunjin could see, visibly, would be the cranial damage – but that would’ve been an easy repair, wouldn’t it? So why was it here? That was just a waste.
Maybe it was something internal? Hyunjin would be far too inexperienced to know. Just another reason to haul it back to Chan’s shop, then.
“Guess who’s – woah!”
Hyunjin yelped and fell to the ground, barely avoiding a wrench sailing overhead. He grunted at the sudden movement made the heavy tin can on his back shift, and he hurriedly scurried inside so it could fall on the floor of the workshop rather than the front doorstep. It hit the cement floor with a loud clang! and landed in an awkward heap of limbs. Hyunjin winced and apologized to the poor thing under his breath.
Then, he straightened back up, and narrowed his eyes. The shop was a complete mess, even more than it usually was. Tools and bits of scrap metal flew all across the room, zipping through the air like particularly dangerous birds. Shelves were knocked over, counters were in disarray, and it was also suffocatingly hot.
Hyunjin huffed and wiped the sweat from his brow, marching through the chaos to get to the source of it all. He had to duck beneath a broken engine that went careening his way, and then immediately jump back to avoid a cloud of screws that kept swaying back and forth in midair. The closer he got to the door on the side of the room, the more his wanted to press his hands against his ears to block out the high-pitched ringing that emanated from it.
Arriving there without incident, he gritted his teeth and banged on the door as hard as he could. (Or, well, as hard as a human could, since he didn’t want to break the thing down.)
The objects in the shop froze where they floated for a second, before starting back flying around even faster like a steel tornado. The door pulled open roughly, revealing the culprit of the workshop’s state.
Jeongin glared up at him with his teeth slightly bared, his irises nearly completely black. A bit of oil was smudged across his eyebrow, and his orange hair was standing on end like he’d been electrocuted. He smelled slightly burnt, and it tickled Hyunjin’s nose.
Jeongin’s mouth opened, no doubt to curse him out for interrupting him – but then a screwdriver sailed through the air and firmly imbedded itself in the wall just a few inches away from Hyunjin’s head. Hyunjin arched an eyebrow, and Jeongin’s whole irritated expression dropped in an almost comedic fashion, replaced by utter mortification.
“Oh, shit…” Jeongin muttered. He opened the door fully and ushered Hyunjin inside, shutting it behind them just in time for something much larger than a screwdriver to slam against the door, making it shake. The whole interior of Jeongin’s supply closet-turned-study smelled strongly of oil and burnt hair, making Hyunjin sneeze. He watched Jeongin clench his eyes shut and put his fingers to his temples, taking deep breaths and breathing out of his mouth. After what felt like forever, the din of the workshop began to quiet down. There was a series of loud clanks and clangs as things began to drop out of the air and fall to the ground. He spared half a thought to hope that nothing too heavy or sharp landed on his new pet project.
“What could have possibly worked you up this much in the time I’ve been gone?” Hyunjin asked dryly once he was sure Jeongin was done with his concentration. He mimed patting his hair down and held back a snicker as Jeongin hurried smoothed down his wild, electrified hair, cheeks bright red with embarrassment.
“I – I wasn’t that worked up, I swear…” Jeongin mumbled. He pulled on his ear and pouted at Hyunjin’s snicker. “I was just… really in the zone. Focused. Um…”
Hyunjin tucked a strand of blonde hair behind his ear and waltzed over to Jeongin’s crammed little work desk. He ignored Jeongin’s startled yelp and batted away the younger’s hands as Jeongin tried to pull him back. “Focused on what, though? Can’t be that air purifier hyung asked you to fix…”
He leaned over the desk, and what he saw made his eyebrows raise. There were scattered papers on the small surface with dozens of sketches – very familiar sketches. They were schematics of dozens different designs of the same general idea: a bionic arm. Jeongin had hastily scrawled notes on the corners of his drawings, arrows and scribbled equations pasted every which way. Some of the designs were sleek and modern, while others had clear artistic liberties taken. In the corners of the different sketches, Jeongin left notes and criticisms of each design – these ones would have difficulty with the joint articulation, this one would be too heavy, this one was an electrocution risk, etc.
A smirk curled up onto Hyunjin’s lips as he realized what Jeongin had been working on that got him so over-excited. Jeongin threw himself over the desk, covering the schematics with his body and hurriedly gathering them into his arms to Hyunjin couldn’t see any more.
“H – hyung! Stop snooping!” Jeongin squealed. A few sparks twinkled in his hair as his face went bright red.
Hyunjin cooed and reached out to pinch Jeongin’s pink cheek. “D’aww, is our little baby apprentice working on a certain idol’s commission? Oh, your crush is so cute!”
“It’s not a crush -!” Jeongin whined loudly, his hair starting to rise just a bit. He knocked away Hyunjin’s hand and straightened up with the sketches stuffed between his arms. He hastily opened one of the drawers of his desk and stuffed them inside without any concern for organization. “It’s -! It’s just that it’s a really big job, is all, and I want it to be good! It’s a – a good networking opportunity!”
Hyunjin looked at him flatly. Slowly, he moved his eyes to the side, landing on the slightly torn poster that was half-hidden behind a file organizer. “Just a networking opportunity, huh?”
Jeongin scowled. “If you’re just gonna make fun of me, then you can get out of my office! Aren’t you supposed to be doing errands for Chan, anyway? What happened to those?”
“Oh, right! I was doing errands, and I found something!” Hyunjin perked up and clapped his hands together. “I need either you or Chan to check it out.”
Jeongin pursed his lips. Hyunjin didn’t give him a chance to ask any more questions. He grabbed Jeongin’s wrist and yanked him out of the room, pulling him behind him. The poor kid was going to fry his brain if he kept up working on the arm commisison, so, really, Hyunjin was doing him a favor.
The workshop looked like an explosion had gone off. Tools and scrap metal were scattered everywhere. Half-fixed (and now, newly broken) projects laid strewn across the ground. The two of them had to pick their way through the large room carefully, though Hyunjin had a natural grace that made it rather easy for him. When they got to the front door, he was glad to know that other than appearing to have had a whole bucket of screws upturned onto it, his new treasure was unharmed by Jeongin’s loss of control.
Hyunjin crouched down and threw one of the android’s arms over his shoulder to pick it up and stand it straight next to him. Its head lolled against his shoulder, cold and heavy, and a bit of oil smeared against his shirt. Hyunjin hardly even noticed.
Jeongin froze in front of him, mouth agape. “Is that a fucking android?”
“Ta-da!” Hyunjin sang, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Is it whole? Where did you find this thing?” Jeongin began to circle him, eyes never leaving the android next to him. He looks a mix of awed and alarmed. “Did you steal it? Hyunjin, I know you know what stealing is.”
“I stole it in the same sense that I stole those things on the list Channie gave me,” Hyunjin answered. “Hey, watch this.”
Hyunjin shifted the android’s head so that it was facing more outward. He rapped against its cranium with his knuckles, making a thunk thunk thunk. The wires in its empty eye socket sparked, and then its other eyes flickered blue.
“S… sys…”
Within seconds, it shut back down again. He’d prodded at it a few times on the way from the landfill, and each time, it powered on for a few seconds less.
Jeongin gasped sharply. In the span of a blink, Hyunjin’s arms were empty. He protested wordlessly as Jeongin snatched the android from him, briefly buckling under its sudden weight, and started dragging it toward the only semi-empty workbench in the shop.
“You found an android that still works? One as modern as this one? Holy shit, hyung! Do you have any idea how big this is?” Jeongin began to babble excitedly, sparks dancing in the air around him. Hyunjin flipped his hair and walked after him, pouting.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s amazing – and I found him, so he’s mine! And be careful, your sparks are gonna short circuit the poor thing.”
Jeongin hefted the android up onto the surface of the workbench and gave Hyunjin a sheepish grin, reaching a hand up to flatten his hair. “Sorry, hyung. But this is huge!”
“You’re not dismantling him for spare parts,” Hyunjin huffed. In a stretch of light, he removed his glamor, and flittered up on top of Jeongin’s head. He laid down on his stomach, resting his chin in his hands as he looked down at the defunct android from his new vantage point. Jeongin’s magic was still excited and reaching out in an aura that tickled Hyunjin’s skin and made him want to sneeze.
“Of course not, who do you think I am?” Jeongin muttered gruffly. “If you’re gonna use my hair as a bed, can you at least keep my bangs out of my eyes?” Hyunjin stuck out his tongue, not that Jeongin could see, and obliged. It made him feel like that rat from that cooking movie Chan liked so much.
The two of them quickly devolved into silence. Jeongin’s focus was instantly taken up by checking the android over. He started at the very top of its head, running his figures over every seam and cranny, muttering mechanic babble under his breath as he made note of the damages. It was a slow-going process. Jeongin was incredibly meticulous and didn’t leave an inch of articifical skin untouched.
When Hyunjin first found the android, the only notable damages he found where the missing eye and the impaled hip. Jeongin, however, found a dozen of other issues – busted joints, cracks in the endoskeleton, broken hydraulics… When he carefully opened up the chest cavity, he hissed lowly, and even Hyunjin could tell why. It looked like part of the android’s fragile internal hardware had been partially melted. There was also a multitude of smaller problems, like the truly horrific circuitry and the overall damage to the cosmetics of the robot.
So-called cosmetic damages. Hyunjin wasn’t sure what Jeongin was talking about. He thought the android looked pretty handsome!
“This… is not going to be an easy fix,” Jeongin said eventually, finishing up checking the articulation of one of the ankles. He sighed in frustration, and scratched his cheek, smudging some oil onto it. “I’m honestly not sure how it was powering on earlier. I can’t even find a power bank. It might be behind that melted chunk, but I doubt it. That kind of heat usually makes power banks, uh, explode.”
Hyunjin hummed. He’d started braiding strands of Jeongin’s hair together while he watched the younger work, and was finishing up one of them with a tiny rubber band. They were so small, it would probably take a few days for Jeongin to notice.
“Do your hand-wavey stuff and read its mind,” Hyunjin suggested. Jeongin made a face.
“I can’t use my magic without Chan’s supervision. You know that.”
“I’m not saying you should, like, zap it! Just get a read of it! That’s easy enough.”
“Easy for you to say…” Jeongin grumbled. He threw a thumb over his shoulder. “Have you forgotten what the workshop looks like right now?”
Hyunjin had forgotten about that. “Oh, right,” he said. He hummed. “We should probably clean that up before Chan gets back.”
He squeaked when Jeongin pinched the back of his shirt and pulled him off his head. His wings fluttered indignantly as he dangled in front of Jeongin’s face, limbs flailing. “I’ll cut you a deal – you clean all this up, and I’ll convince hyung not to dismantle your new friend. That sound fair?”
“No, ‘cause the mess isn’t even my fault!” Hyunjin yelled.
In a casual, almost friendly tone, Jeongin looked down at the android and said, “Y’know, we’ll need a lot of parts to fix this guy up. Expensive parts. And, well – the whole point of going through the landfills is to save money…” He trailed off and eyed Hyunjin cheekily.
Hyunjin groaned, knowing he was cornered. “Fine… fine! I’ll clean up the stupid shop…”
Jeongin cackled and set Hyunjin down on his feet on top of the work bench, right next to the android’s head. “Thank you, hyung~”
“Stupid, impertinent little… no respect! Ugh…”