Word Count: 2,022

“See? This is how you shape the skeleton.” Baekhyun slowly shaved away at the ceramic layer covering the titanium rod that would be the femur of the newest mecha. Kyungsoo internalised the information. “This is how I make them look so life-like and human,” he explained. Baekhyun had been teaching Kyungsoo how to make the mecha and giving him lessons that were not included in basic information of how to create mecha. Baekhyun was teaching him how to make the unique mecha the way he did, how to make the unsettlingly realistic mecha.

Kyungsoo wanted to learn how to make the mecha in order to help his master. Although Baekhyun told Kyungsoo that he was not a master but a friend, Kyungsoo still only thought of Baekhyun as a master. He had no real concept of friend. Baekhyun knew that Kyungsoo couldn’t understand but he still tried to explain, to no avail.

Baekhyun finished forming the ceramic around the bone and showed it to Kyungsoo. “See how the bone curves in these places?” Kyungsoo nodded, comparing the information Baekhyun was showing him with the data he had installed from an anatomy and physiology knowledge disk.

Baekhyun handed him the sanding and scraping tools. “How about you try now?” Kyungsoo nodded. He found that Baekhyun sighed when Kyungsoo replied with something like, I’ll do whatever you say, so he stuck with nodding in reply. “Humans all have the same basic bone structure. The only thing that really matters is the facial structure, so we’ll do that last,” Baekhyun continued.

The reason that Baekhyun was the best at building mecha was not only the technique he developed himself, but also the fact that he had extremely dextrous fingers. That was part of the trick to his technique. Kyungsoo had equal skill with his hands and easily created the matching femur.

“How does this look Baek?” Kyungsoo held up the finished product for Baekhyun’s inspection.

“It looks perfect,” Baekhyun replied, grinning. Kyungsoo smiled his empty smile in return. It hurt Baekhyun that he couldn’t express to Kyungsoo what being happy was. It hurt that Kyungsoo couldn’t feel happiness and instead substituted it with the correct words and the correct facial expressions.

“I’m glad,” Kyungsoo responded, which hurt Baekhyun’s heart even more. “Baek-ah. It’s late. Humans need sleep. I think you should go to sleep,” Kyungsoo said. Baekhyun turned to see the clock. It read 11:45.

“I guess you’re right,” Baekhyun replied. “Let’s go to bed, then,” he said getting up from the workbench and heading to the door. His workshop was out behind his house so the two headed back after locking the workshop up.

“Do you want to sleep with me tonight?” Baekhyun asked as they climbed the stairs to his bedroom. He suddenly realised how tired he really was as he climbed and his legs became progressively heavier.

“I would love to,” Kyungsoo replied.

For some reason, Kyungsoo really liked sleeping with Baekhyun. It must have been in the program. When Baekhyun didn’t invite Kyungsoo to come to bed with him, Kyungsoo usually asked. Baekhyun couldn’t turn the poor robot away and always let him in. Baekhyun would slide into bed and Kyungsoo would slide in beside him before wrapping his arms around Baekhyun. Sometimes, Baekhyun would try and teach Kyungsoo how to sing with soul but that never worked. In the end, they usually just ended up with a beautiful harmony.

Baekhyun had managed to wire the circuitry in the mecha to produce human warmth from their skin, so Kyungsoo’s presence beside him seemed very real. Kyungsoo would sing lullabies to Baekhyun to help him fall asleep, but Baekhyun could fall asleep just listening to the light hum of Kyungsoo’s heart and feeling the gentle warmth coming from him.

It had become a habit to go to sleep in Kyungsoo’s embrace at night and wake up to it in the morning. Kyungsoo always put his body to sleep when Baekhyun was asleep despite the fact that he did not actually require it. Baekhyun added a mechanism by which Kyungsoo could imitate sleep, but turning off all of the processes except for his “heart” and the most basic brain functions. Tonight, Kyungsoo sang Angel: Into Your World until Baekhyun’s breath slowed to the peaceful tempo of sleep. Soon after, Kyungsoo went to “sleep”.

--

With Kyungsoo’s help, Baekhyun was able to finish the skeleton much more quickly. It took less than half of the time because Kyungsoo was just a little bit faster at it than Baekhyun was.

“I’m sure you already know the basics of putting in all of the muscles and skin and such for a mecha, but there are little nuances that make them look just a little more real,” Baekhyun explained. “Mecha are built like humans, with tendons and muscles in similar places and shapes,” Kyungsoo recited.

“The thing that makes them just a little more real is adding little bits of padding underneath the muscles so that the form looks less stick-like and more human. So under this,” he indicated the calf muscle, “just put a little padding underneath and when you put the skin over, it looks more like a human calf because unlike humans, your muscles are all the same volume despite the fact that they can exert more force.” Kyungsoo nodded.

“After you put the muscles in place, you hook up the circuits to all of the nerve points.” Baekhyun indicated little indentations on the muscles, “And attach the nerve circuits back to the spine.”

The mecha was still headless because they did that part last and it might have been slightly disconcerting to a normal person but mecha builders were surprisingly fine with dealing with headless bodies. As they worked from the feet up, the skeleton began to come to life. It looked like one of those anatomical models students used to study a long time ago, although this one was headless. First, they did the muscles on the back to add enough support that they could add the processors and generators into the chest and abdomen. Where humans had internal organs, mecha had the mechanisms that made them function.

Because Baekhyun was as sentimental as he was, he commissioned a special engineer to make the generator look as much like a heart as he could. The disk reader just below the left collarbone looked like a small fish with its mouth open. The hard drive and all other components were fairly flat and looked more like river stones than anything. All of the wires hooked up to the spinal cord. After putting all of the machinery in, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo added the muscles to the front.

Doing the muscles, tendons, and “organs” took two weeks with Kyungsoo helping out. Baekhyun found it fun to work alongside the cute mecha who hummed sweetly as they worked. Baekhyun stopped himself from thinking that Kyungsoo hummed happily because he couldn’t.

--

“The skin should be fairly easy because I already have the circuits wired into the silicon. All we need to do is lay it over the muscles.” He began by laying the silicon overtop the structure. “Then you melt it together at the seams like here.” He used a small welding tool and afterwards, no one could tell that it wasn’t a continuous structure.

“Okay. I think I can do it.” Kyungsoo smiled at Baekhyun. Maybe it was just that Baekhyun was growing accustomed to Kyungsoo’s “smile” or maybe Kyungsoo was growing on Baekhyun. He shook his head to clear it.

“Are you okay Baek-ah?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” Baekhyun smiled. “Why?”

“You just look displeased with something.”

“No. I’m fine hyung.” Baekhyun returned the smile.

“Okay,” Kyungsoo chirped.

He worked up one leg as Kyungsoo worked up the other. Then, they worked from the fingers in and did the back of the torso. The front was covered with a stiffer plate to protect the machinery inside. He left one patch of the chest cavity open. It was a sentimental habit he had of having the covering on the heart be the last thing he would do. It took a week, but they finally finished up to the neck and were ready to work on the skull. Having an assistant halved the time it would have taken Baekhyun to do it alone. It was time to do the head and make the mecha unique.

--

“So this person… Um. Yifan. He sent us a picture of what he wants his mecha to look like. And he wants it to be named ‘Tao’.” Baekhyun showed the picture to Kyungsoo. “I have a plan for what his face should look like and how it should be put together,” Baekhyun continued, “but I would be grateful if you could look at the plans and review my design.”

“Sure Baek-ah,” Kyungsoo replied. “Although I’m sure that I will have nothing to offer the best builder in the world.”

“Everything can be improved,” Baekhyun said.

“You’re just being modest.” Baekhyun smiled gratefully back at his mechanical friend.

Kyungsoo went over the plans and added a few changes and then the two of them worked for another two weeks on the head.

“Why do you have a picture of this Tao person?” Kyungsoo asked once day.

“Well… Sometimes people want mecha for other purposes than just a companion. Sometimes they want a replacement for a lost friend or lover.”

“I see.”

“Is that why he has a picture of Tao?” Kyungsoo asked.

“Probably.”

“What is this Tao person’s relationship with Yifan?”

“I don’t know. I don’t ask about them. I only build them.” He shrugged.

“Why?”

“Usually it’s painful.”

“What does painful feel like?”

Baekhyun paused, trying to think of how to explain it without putting his own heart out for all to see. “It’s when something bad has happened. You don’t want to think about it and when you do, you want to stop but usually cannot. If someone were to die, you might miss him.”

“What is missing someone?”

“It’s when you can’t see a person and you want to…” Baekhyun replied.

“Baek-ah? Why are you leaking?”

“What?”

“Your eyes are leaking.” Baekhyun looked down at the worktable and found wet spots below. He wiped his eyes hurriedly.

“Sorry.”

“Why are you leaking? Do you miss someone?”

“No,” Baekhyun replied.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Baekhyun turned away because his eyes were “leaking” again. He felt someone hug him from behind.

“L-let’s just get back to work,” Baekhyun said shakily.

“But you’re still leaking.”

“It’s fine. You can go back to working. You have the plans in your head right?”

“Whatever you want,” Kyungsoo replied uncertainly. No. He replied with an uncertain tone, he corrected in his head.

“I need to go outside and get some fresh air. I’ll be right back.”

“But Baek, it’s raining right now.”

“It’s fine.” It hides the tears better that way, he thought, exiting quickly. Soon enough, his hot salty tears were mixing with the cold clear raindrops. The face never left his mind. It would never go away. And it was all his fault.

“Baekhyun. You should come inside before you get sick. It’s already been a half an hour,” Kyungsoo said with learned concern as he came out of the workshop. “It’s late. Why don’t we finish for today and work again tomorrow.”

“Yeah… That’s a good idea…” He didn’t move and Kyungsoo went back in to close the shop before leading Baekhyun back to the house.

“Do you want me to keep you company tonight?” Kyungsoo asked as he handed Baekhyun a towel to dry off with.

“N-not tonight…” Baekhyun replied. This had only happened on three other occasions.

“Okay…” Kyungsoo sounded like a kicked puppy. That was the only emotion that the mecha could most closely mimic, disappointment. They expressed it when they couldn’t perform their function.

“I’m sorry. I can’t tonight hyung… I’m just going to go to bed…” He slunk into his bedroom, changing out of the wet clothes before clambering into bed. “I am so sorry, Jongdae,” he whispered to himself before falling off into a fatigued sleep.

A/N: So this is a little bit of background in which they live. I hope you enjoyed and enjoy the chapters to come! This is also the beginning of the second arc! The next few chapters are part of the sub-set of the story going by the name of "The Second Miracle".