prompt: leo/any, cyborg au

warning: cybernetics, mentions of cancer and narcolepsy

follow-up to the previous cyberpunk!au

Contrary to what Sanghyuk believed - because that's what Taekwoon wanted him to believe in - the organization was not in fault for Jaehwan's condition. Taekwoon just... told Sanghyuk it was the case, because he couldn't live with the fact that it was all thanks to Taekwoon that Jaehwan was... like this.

It was Taekwoon's fault, because if only he hadn't played god with an actual human being - his friend... no, his lover- then all of this wouldn't have happened at all. Sanghyuk wouldn't have had to be included, his life wouldn't have had to be ruined by trying to help them while being kept in the dark.

Though, if it wasn't for this, Taekwoon - and Jaehwan too - wouldn't have met Sanghyuk, and now that thought was just as painful as the thought of ruining his life so early.

It was Taekwoon's fault. 

Or was it that new type of vicious brain cancer in Jaehwan's skull, rapidly expanding, and disabling Jaehwan, slowly killing him?

Or was it the underdeveloped medical science that couldn't help Jaehwan? Or was it the too-advanced cyber technology that enabled Taekwoon to create that neurotransmitter?

No, it was Taekwoon, because it was him who convinced Jaehwan to agree to the surgery; he... used Jaehwan's unconditional trust in him to experiment on the man he loved the most. But what was Taekwoon supposed to do? To just... sit tight as he watched Jaehwan wither away in a dirty hospital bed, while he had the means to save him? 

At first, it worked; the transmitter fit in with Jaehwan's cybernetics perfectly, it worked perfectly, targeting and stopping the cancer cells - it didn't kill them, but rendered them useless, and in this area, it meant victory. In fact, it worked so well that people who should have not known about it learned about Taekwoon's success, and contacted him. They wanted the transmitter - for the greater good, they said, think about it, you could save millions of people, they said - but Taekwoon was too... he was still too euphoric that he'd gotten Jaehwan back, whole and healthy, to think about the greater good. Taekwoon's greater good was Jaehwan, and he'd succeeded in saving him; he was no hero anyway, to think about millions of random people when he had Jaehwan.

So they took Jaehwan with force, when nice words didn't seem to work. They took him, took the chip, replaced it with some cheap , and dumped Jaehwan on Taekwoon's porch, like garbage, broken and bruised. The chip they used was good enough to stop the cancer, but they had a price to pay for that; it meddled with the sleep-wake cycle regulation, and caused Jaehwan to sleep more than he was awake.

Taekwoon was desperate - they'd taken everything from him, his researches and findings, burned down his laboratory. He had nothing but a sleeping Jaehwan on the brink of death. 

And that's where Sanghyuk came in. He was desperate too, disowned by his family for his freshly acquired cybernetic arm that Sanghyuk itched to try out - Sanghyuk was the hero they were looking for in Taekwoon.

All Sanghyuk had to do was to get Taekwoon's transmitter back from the organization - he didn't care how - but in the end, they proved too strong for a young, inexperienced mercenary like Sanghyuk. Taekwoon couldn't pay for a more seasoned one, so Sanghyuk stuck around, and in some twisted sense of fate, they fell in love-- first, Sanghyuk, that's why he stayed even when Taekwoon couldn't pay him more, and then Taekwoon. And Sanghyuk wanted to help Jaehwan so bad, and whenever Jaehwan was lucky enough to be awake, he welcomed Sanghyuk's presence like and old friend.

But Taekwoon just couldn't tell Sanghyuk the truth that it wasn't just the organization's fault.

He couldn't.

He felt horrible for using Sanghyuk's emotions to manipulate him, but Taekwoon's feelings for him were as true as they could be.

Taekwoon was no hero.

He was just a desperate man.