Taekwoon closes the door and glances at his watch. It reads four twenty in the morning and he cringes. He locks the door and turns off the desk lamp walking in the dark to the stairs to his small apartment above the shop.  He strips down his clothes and collapses in bed groaning as his lower back protest at his day long bad posture. He closes his eyes wills himself to sleep only to have the image of Sanghyuk sprawling on his bench pop up behind his eyes. This kid drives him crazy. He falls asleep thinking of Sanghyuk and is woken up rather harshly by his alarm clock three hours later. He gets up still half asleep and shuffle downstairs to prepare himself a large cup of coffee. He nurses his coffee while reading the morning news on his phone,  slowly waking up. At five past seven, a series of knocks wakes his from his half awake state and begrudgingly opens the door to his ever noisy friend Hakyeon.

"You were supposed to open five minutes ago!" he squints eyes,  "You look you just got out bed" he shakes his head.
Taekwoon simply grunts and turns around to his small table. Hakyeon huffs and closes the door before following his friend.
Taekwoon refills his cup with coffee,  adding milk and a lot of sugar as usual.
Hakyeon eyes him suspiciously "on which number of cup of coffee are you? "
"Two."
"And when did you wake up? "
Taekwoon sighs. "half and hour ago."
"...  How many hours did you sleep? "
"Three."
"You need to stop doing that."
"Thanks for the advice."
"Don't be sarcastic with me Taekwoon. Is my stuff ready? "
"It's not, sorry."
"What happened ?"
"I was planning on finishing it yesterday but I got interrupted."
Hakyeon sighs. "Can you finish it today?"
"It's my priority."
"If you have too much work you need to hire someone."
"I can't afford it."
Hakyeon sighs once again.
"I'll come back at five o'clock."
"It should be ready by that time."
Taekwoon ushers his friend out and brings his cup of coffee to his desk,  turning on his desk lamp. He pushes aside Sanghyuk's destroyed legs and goes back to the hand he was modifying last night.  He adjusts the magnifying glass over the opened palm and starts adjusting the small motors controlling the  fine movements of fingers.  He has been trying to incorporate surgery technology into his hands for a while for a more fine delicate control but it turned out to be a lot more difficult to realize on top of being pretty expensive to produce. Hakyeon had got a client interested in the idea and helped Taekwoon buy some components by giving him a Depot but the deadline was around the corner and it was nowhere close to being done. Taekwoon worked without a break until one o'clock and by that time his cup of coffee was cold. The man simply made himself another cup and went back to work, finally wiring the fingers and the motors and testing them. The movements were slightly jittery and the frowned trying work his way around for a smoother movement and after one more hour of probing around, he obtained what he was looking for. The sensor in the fingertips was exceptional but even though he had little to do with it, he was still proud of the result.
He allowed himself a small break before moving to the wrist portion of the hand.  It was less delicate part important regardless. A hand with very fine finger movements and great sensibility would not be interesting with limited wrist capacities and range. The chime of the door shakes him up from his work trance and sees his friend walking to him hesitantly.
 

"Thirty more minutes? " Taekwoon pleads.
"Alright. I'll be discreet."
"Thanks."

Taekwoon dives back into his work, without rushing. Rushing in this field always means mistakes and mistakes can be dangerous in many cases.

As the thirty minutes are up, Taekwon is fine tuning the wrist, changing a few things here and here, slightly moving or tweaking something. He finally rolls his chair back, pushing his bangs away from his eyes, messing up his already bad bed hair.

“I think I’m done.”

“Really ???”

“Yeah. I could spend more time fine tuning stuff but it’s good enough. If your client wants changes I’ll go to him”

“Great, great. We can deliver it on time. You’re the best.”

Taekwon simply grunts as his friend has jumped on him, crushing his lungs in a strong hug.

“Ah! Do you have a box ?”

“From parts delivery, yes.”

“I’ll need one to get the hand to the office.”

Taekwon stands and goes to his closet where he stores scraps and spares in a messy pile, card boxes folded against a wall, waiting to be used or recycled. He comes back with a box and a piece of fabric.

He puts both items on the table and wraps the hand in the fabric and tapes the box, sealing it.

“It’s good to go.”

“Thanks, hm the final payment should come in as soon as the client is in possession of it.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks again.”

Hakyeon jogs to the door and closes it rather quickly. From his window, Taekwon can see him getting into the car and drive away.

After Hakyeon leaves Taekwoon, the man contemplates going back to bed but Hyuk’s destroyed legs on his desk are almost calling him. He steps into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich and mindlessly eats it while checking the destroyed prosthetics on his desk. He brushes off the crumbs from his hands and sits down, ready to work again. He starts by removing the synthetic skin that  stops him from really assessing the extent of the damages. The legs are covered in scratches from the knee down  to the ankle. He sighs and starts unscrewing the knee and the ankle to divide his work into section and concentrates on the calf first, working on articulations being over his current state of mind. Of course, it’s the part of the leg that is the worst. Most of the ligaments are torn, and a lot of them are torn  in several places. The basic structure seems to be fine. Considering Taekwoon used the sturdiest alloy of metal he had to make the base structure of the leg the heaves a sigh of relief, the alloy was expensive and he did not have any of it left. The ligaments would all have to be replaced and the silicone cover was completely destroyed so it would have to be replaced too. Taking some pliers and thongs and a little saw out of his toolbox, The man starts taking apart the calf, removing the torn ligaments, placing them in a box by his desk where the scraps go. After removing everything that cannot be repaired, the man is left with most of the base structure and a few ligaments. Some parts may need a few adjustments because of the heavy use Sanghyuk seem to have inflicted upon his prosthetics but it is merely maintenance work. Putting his tools back into their box, Taekwoon gets up from his chair and turns off his powerful table lamp and heads to his small apartment above the shop to shower quickly before collapsing in bed, way past midnight.

Taekwoon is woken up by his phone vibrating. Groaning, the man ignores the device and rolls in his bed, trying to go back to sleep. Minutes later his alarm clock ring and he barely stop himself from throwing his phone against the wall. He check the text message and see it is from Hakyeon.

“Call me as soon as you see this.”

Taekwoon groans again.

He dials Hakyeon’s number and wait for the man to pick up.

“Good morning sunshine !”

“...”

“Taekwoon ?”

“Yeah ?”

“Are you even awake ?”

“No.”

“I gave the hand to the client.”

“Is there a problem ?”

“He says it’s perfect. He will get back at us in about two weeks after testing it at work but he says he is confident it will do an exceptional job.”

“You could have texted me all this you know.”

“Don’t be such a killjoy will you ?”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Have a-”

The man gets up from his bed, throwing the phone on the mattress and dressing up for the day. After pocketing his phone, he steps into the kitchen of his atelier, still mostly asleep and starts brewing his coffee for the day. While the coffee brews, Taekwoon does his usual round of the shop and flips the sign on the door after unlocking it.

He makes himself a cup and sits down at his desk, looking at the base structure of the calf he unveils last night along with  the discarded ankle, kneecap, and lower thigh parts. He picks up the calf again, making sure he didn’t miss something last night and moves on the kneecap. It was deformed from a few impacts and have a few deep scratches on the sides. The man tests the articulation quickly but as he expected, it is no good anymore and the tosses it in the box next to him. The ankle is in even a worse state than the knee he just discarded and it is discarded without any second thoughts. Thankfully the lower thigh part is salvageable and he puts it on the side to work on the other leg. He takes the other leg apart and after a mere look at the ankle and kneecap, they join the other in the box. He once again takes apart the calf with pliers, removing all torn ligaments and throwing the destroyed ones. After finishing discarding everything, Taekwoon goes to a room at the back of the store  and comes back with his arms full of boxes. He places the boxes next to his desk and takes out a few basic articulations from a box and Starts working on them to make new ankles and knees. When Sanghyuk comes to see him, the ankles and knees are always something that needs to be replaced and Taekwoon has been trying to find a way to make them last longer and he has been spending some of his free time designing new and more resistant articulations. He Takes out his notes and croquis and lays them out on the desk, next to all of the components he needs. He starts by working on a knee as the articulation is bigger, he doesn’t to strain his eyes too much. He spends the rest of the day working of new articulations and goes to bed earlier than the last few nights.