Okay, I didn't know this chapter was going to be this long. 

Minseok could not sleep last night. The whole Jongdae thing has been going on for too long. He's been meaning to tell him about it, it's just with being the first, ever to have synthetic skin was a big deal in their economy. No one in his community could afford having synthetic skin. Obviously, it was too expensive. Only the wealthy had the means for it.

Even though the wealthy looked like they were untouched, in reality more than half of them had been affected by the Dryadustia virus. The reason they could hide it, is because they could afford to get surgeries for synthetic skin. The people that had robotic limbs would never tell anyone besides their family that they had it. In high society, it was frowned upon. To them, robotic parts symbolized poverty, if others found out, you would be shunned. Completely kicked out and put on the streets with nothing but the clothes on your back, and the money in your name.

Therefore being Minseok, in a poor society, to possess a synthetic cyborg part, it had to remain a secret. If word got around, in time it would get out to the media and he would be all over it.

When Cybrid gave him his new hand, they made him swear not to tell anyone but his parents. At first he was confused to why he had to keep his hand secret, but his parents explained to him that it was for his own safety. Whatever that means.

Walking down the stairs, Minseok rubs his face as he still continues to think of ways to tell Jongdae about his hand.

Maybe it'll just come to me.

He makes it down to the front door and sees a figure through the clear windows.

"He's already here? Hmm. He usually comes after me." Minseok quietly says to himself as he opens the door. Jongdae gives the habitual greeting and turns around mid-sentence.

"Welcome to the C Shop! I'll be with you in a-. Oh hey! It's just you!" Jongdae smiles and cleans up the counter.

"Just me? Am I getting that boring?" Minseok acts offended and brings a hand to his chest.

Jongdae doesn't catch on Minseok's sarcastic question and tries to think of an answer. "What? I- no! I was just- I thought you were a customer and.. Um..."

"Dude, calm down. I was just joking." Minseok laughs while he makes his way behind the counter. Jongdae sighs and sits down behind the counter.

For the first few hours of the day shifts several people come in. A few repairs here, and customers coming in to buy parts there.

It's around eleven o'clock when another customer comes in. Minseok greets him happily, but the man's expression shows otherwise.

The guy looked young, maybe nineteen or twenty. His right leg and his arm up to his elbow were robotic, though his parts were different. Light blue lights traced along the length of his arm all the way to his fingertips, while dark blue lines ran along his leg. Based on Minseok's knowledge, his parts were probably made by the underground makers. Cybrid parts were just plain, blunt robotic limbs, no intricate designs or marks.

"How may I help you today?" Minseok attempts to act as if he's with a regular customer, but he can tell that there's something different about him.

"Oh, I'm just going to look around for a second, though I do need a new arm part." He doesn't look at Minseok as he says this still looking at pictures of new models on the walls.

"Alright, what model are you looking for?" Minseok waits patiently for him to answer but he doesn't.

"I'm not looking for a specific one, but I do need several parts." He names off all of the models he needs which was quite a lot. Minseok doesn't mean to be rude be he asks him a question that probably would set him off.

"Do you have all the money for these parts?"

The boy finally looks up at him with dark eyes and slowly advances towards Minseok while he puts both his hands on the counter.

"That's the thing. I don't have the money, but you are going to give the parts for me." Minseok is baffled by how straightforward this guy is, bluntly saying, "I'm going to rob your store so step aside and give me what I want."

"I don't think that's going to happen." Minseok takes a step back to mentally prepare himself.

Apparently, the man is skilled in combat when he hears his next statement. "So you're in Taekwondo, your stance shows everything. Actually, I'm into martial arts as well."

The offender rolls up his sleeves and jumps over the counter, realizing how tall he is, Minseok takes another step back.

"I'm giving you one chance, get out of my shop." Minseok stands there, waiting for him to do something.

"Here, I'll tell you what. We will fight, one clean round, if you get me off my feet, I will leave." He jumps back over the counter and moves any obstacles out of the way then continues, "If I win, you will give me the parts I want. Sound like a deal?"

Minseok is unsure whether to take the deal or not. I mean sure, he was in Taekwondo ever since he was nine but he hasn't used his skills in an actual hand to hand combat before.

"Deal." Minseok tries to give the boy a false impression of himself, walking timidly around the counter instead of cockily jumping over it trying to intimidate him.

Now, they are at a stand still. Minseok is near the counter and the other closest to the door.

"Hold on. I'm so rude, my name is Tao, what is yours?" According to the stranger, his name is Tao.

"Xiumin." Minseok replies with his fake name, Jongdae gave it to him because he thought he looked Chinese.

"Ahh, well, now we can begin. Xiumin, you can make the first move." Tao stays still in his ready stance waiting for the other to strike.

Minseok advances and goes for Tao's upper body, seeing his right leg is robotic, he would have to tire out his hands and then will he be able to have an advantage to get his legs out.

As he paces up to Tao, he takes his right leg and nearly sweeps Minseok off his feet. When Tao almost thought it was over, Minseok keeps his body up off the ground with his hands and springs himself back up jabs him with his left hand. Tao steps back a little and Minseok sees him touch his abdomen for a split second.

So it's that strong.

Minseok shakes off that thought and continues to attempt to hit Tao in his stomach. Their fighting still goes on, Minseok hitting him in his stomach and Tao repeatedly uses his right leg to defend himself. While he struggles once more to hit his stomach, Tao once again uses his leg, however Minseok uses his left hand and pushes his leg down again, this time, Tao's legs slightly goes behind him and he almost trips. Minseok takes this opportunity and gets close up to Tao, now using his leg to trip him. Once Tao's body is up in the air, Minseok uses his hands and pushes him down.

Tao opens his eyes and sees Minseok grab him by the collar harshly whispering something to him.

"Now get out of my store." He shoves him to the ground and stands up.

Tao now gets up and give Minseok a confusing look. "Congratulations, you've won. I'll leave now." Minseok doesn't say anything and watches while he leaves. Right after Tao's body goes out of sight he suddenly slouches and sighs. He looks at the damage on his body, a few scars here, some bruises there but he looks at his hands. The interior of his hands are showing. This has never happened to him before. As he thinks of a way to hide his hand someone blurts out at him.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU COULD FIGHT? AND WHO WAS THAT? WHAT DID HE WANT? AND WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR HAND?"

Well this is one way to tell Jongdae.

"I- uh, it, um. Well. I have a-" Minseok's at a loss for words.

"I thought you said you were immune." By now Jongdae is in front of him examining his hand.

"I-I am, but that doesn't mean it can prevent me from losing limbs to other things."

"So are you gonna tell me why you haven't told me all these years that we've know each other?" Jongdae steps away from him crossing his arms and waits for his response.

“Alright, I will, can we sit down though? It may take awhile.” Minseok treads over to the back of the store while Jongdae slowly trails after him.

“It happened when I was ten. My father and I were on our way home from my Taekwondo practice. We exited onto the freeway and it started to rain. At first it was a slight drizzle, though a few minutes passed and it started to pour harder. It was a little difficult to see out of the windshield so everyone had to slow down for their own safety. On the freeway you know how there are three lanes?” Minseok looked up to Jongdae who acknowledged him with a nod before continuing, “Well our car was in the middle, and there was a cars distance between us and the car ahead of us.”

“On our right there was a small Hyundai and he put his blinker on to shift into the lane we were in. As he drifted into our lane the car ahead suddenly slowed down and bumped into each other. The driver of the Hyundai lost control and the car turned sideways. As the car slowed down it hit us creating a whole collision with a bunch of other cars. Our car and a few others had all flipped over, becoming the beginning of a dead stop on the freeway, when all of the cars stopped, ours was flipped over.”

By this point Minseok started to get a little emotional and tried to hide it, but he noticed.

“Minseok, you can stop and tell me later you kn-” He was cut short and Minseok continued on.

“It’s alright, you need to know, you deserve it after all of the years I hid it from you.”

Jongdae looked at him with a desolate look on his face but nodded for him to continue.

“During the constant flipping of our car, I had tried to grab a hold of something to keep me from being tossed everywhere, but I made the mistake of grabbing on to the release of my seat belt. I unlatched myself and started to roll around violently. By the time our car had stopped, the left side of the car had been thorough compressed, with my hand included. Once medics arrived on the scene, they concluded that they had to sever my hand, for it was too damaged to save and I would have died due to blood loss.”

Minseok looked down at his hand, tracing the wires and metal underneath the abrasions of his ‘skin’ with his eyes.

“Right there and then, they took my hand. I passed out from shock and woke up several days later in a hospital. When I woke up, I recalled what had happened to it. I took out my arm from under the blanket found it completely intact. I looked up to my mother and caught sight of her talking with two men in black suits right outside of the room. One was talking to her. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but by the way he had leaned down to speak to my mother, looking around as if he was making sure no one else heard the conversation, it looked like it was a serious matter. The other man was just standing there, he looked younger than the other man. Judging by the wrinkles on the first man’s face, he appeared to be in his forties. The younger looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties. The suited pair nodded at my mother and left, my mom walked in and sat down next to me.”

By now Minseok shed a little tear, maintaining his composure.

“She explained to me that I truly lost my hand in the accident, but Cybrid had it replaced. I was stumped because no one of our family’s social status could afford so much as a completely functional synthetic limb from Cybrid. Parts were always distributed to stores under them and occasionally the parts would break.”

Minseok then sat back in his chair crossing his arms while looking at his hand.

“Now this part always got to me. When I look at it now, I’m twenty-four, which means the accident occurred fourteen years ago, am I right?”
“Right.” Jongdae mimicked Minseok, sitting back in his chair with his legs crossed.

“Then how come synthetic skin was made available to the public only thirteen years ago?”

Jongdae thinks about it, and realizes that it’s true. He doesn’t know what to say and lets him continue.

“My hand was the very, first, of everyone to have synthetic skin. From that day in the hospital, my mother told me that they had tested the ‘hand’ on me. It worked. So Cybrid let me keep my hand and worked on the models for another year before allowing synthetic skin to be allowed to the public. Cybrid had made us swear that my parents and I would not tell anyone that I had the first artificial skin. They said that if we had told others, people would ask to be tested on for future models and Cybrid could not be responsible for multiple lives to be put at risk. So for the rest of our lives, we haven’t told anyone: except, now, for you.”

Jongdae had a lot to take in. At first, he was thinking the same thing as Cybrid’s theory. But he knew better than to ask for Minseok to get him a shoo-in for a synthetic skin surgery.

“So now, you know my current life story. But you have to promise me you will not tell another soul, about this. It can get to the media and possibly start a whole ‘thing’.”

“Oh god no, I swear, I won’t tell.” Jongdae crossed his heart and looked at Minseok with a serious look.

“Good now let’s get back to work.

“Now get out of my store.”  Tao was shoved roughly to the ground. He got up and brushed his hands on his thighs and looks at Xiumin.

“Congratulations, you’ve won. I’ll leave now.” He turns around and walks out of the store. After he’s several feet away from the store he pulls out his phone. It rings multiple times before someone picks up. Tao doesn’t wait for the other to respond and goes right into it.

“Gege, what the hell? You said the shop would be easy.”

“What did I tell you, stop calling me ‘gege’ it’s weird. And what are you saying? Did you not get the parts?” Half agitated, the man sounds confused.

“No, I didn’t, ‘Kris’. The clerk.. He put up a stronger fight than I expected.”

Kris sighs and stays silent for a few seconds before devising another plan for Tao.

“Just hit the store a few blocks away. It’s run by an old man, so don’t up this time will ya?” The phone call ends and Tao hears his phone beep twice, implying Kris ended the call.

Tao walks with his head down, thinking to himself.

What the hell? I’ve never lost a fight. Ever. Not once, whether my opponent is on acid or not.

While he tries to comprehend his previous fight, a guy comes up to him.

“Hey, you’re Tao, right?” The honey-blonde steps closer to him.

“Uhh, yeah, what of it?” He’s still furious.

“Oh, I uh, I’m a huge fan. I actually want to join Modem one day.” Tao scoffs at his comment and hears the other boy look at him.

“Hyung, let’s go.” The boy slightly pouts.

“Shut up, Sehun.” The older boy whips his head towards his younger brother, angry.

“Yeah, shut up Sehun.” Tao turns to the younger one as he mimics his ‘fanboy’ before turning to him and crouching a little to match his height.

“Now have you ever been in a fight before?”

“No.”

“Have you ever taken acid?”

“..No.”

“Then you can never be in Modem. You’re too skinny and feminine. Plus you probably can’t handle even a drop of paracidanine in your veins. Face it,” Tao straightens up and puts his hand on his shoulder, “You’re not man enough. See ya around kid.” With that Tao turns around walking in the opposite direction.

“Luhan, let’s go.” Sehun pulls his arm trying to walk in the other direction.

“For your information I’m twenty-three!” Luhan yells at him, but Tao just keeps walking.

“Come on, do you want me to buy you some bubble tea before we walk over to the C Shop?” Sehun tries to make Luhan forget about it, which he does, but he’s reluctant to leave, wanting to give Tao a piece of his mine. Under his breath he quietly says to himself, “I’ll show you, one day, I’ll be a part of Modem.”

“Thank you! Come again!”

Minseok calls after their recent customer once he’s nearly out the door. He sees Jongdae put both of his hands on the counter, and sigh loudly staring at the dots on the granite tops.

“Hey, a couple hours and we’ll call it a day, sound good?” Minseok nudges his shoulder.

“Yeah, I guess.” Jongdae sighs again, louder this time.

“Don’t act so tired! I’ve helped the last three customers and fought off a guy today, and you’ve swept the floor and fixed a rolly chair that the dude broke.” Minseok pushes him again, this time hard enough to catch him off balance.

“Whatever, I promise to get the next customer alright?”

On cue the door bell rings and Jongdae grunts.

“Welcome to the C Sho... Sehun! You’re here again! What’s up?” Jongdae looks up and sees Sehun, once again. Second day in a row.

“Ah, I’m alright, what about you? Anything exciting happen today?” Sehun walks up to the counter and smiles.

“Actually, yeah! Something, very exciting. This dude came in and tried to rob us, but Minseok fought him with his cool Kung Fu kick- skills. IT WAS SO COOL!” Jongdae’s eyes suddenly light up.

“No way! Minseok, I didn’t know you were in Kung Fu? That’s totally awesome!” Sehun calls out to Minseok who was putting some tools away.

“Taekwondo actually, and it’s not that awesome. Just some defense skills.” Minseok shyly smiles and puts the tool box away, walking up to the counter.

“Are you kidding? You were like, “HHYAA.” Then the dude was like ,“WAAATATAA!!” Then you kicked him up in the air and brought him down the ground and was like, “WAAKAKAKAKAYAHTAA!” Jongdae so gracefully ‘demonstrated’ how Minseok threw punches, kicks and blocks, but it doesn’t hurt to have a wild imagination..

“Whatever, so what did you break today, Sehun?” He gives him a sly smile.

“Hey, heyheyheyheyheyhey, HEY.” Sehun stands up straight and looks at Minseok, “Just because I come in often doesn’t mean it’s always me, it’s actually my brother. Luhan, come over here! I want you to meet my friends, and so you can get your stupid leg fixed.” Sehun walks over to Luhan, who was aimlessly walking around, looking at the pictures of parts and models on the walls.

“What? Oh, y-yeah. Hi, my names Luhan, and my leg’s broken.” Luhan quietly mumbles a short introduction and looks up. He sees a slightly chubby guy stand behind the counter with orange-ish brown hair lightly stare at him.

Wow, he’s kinda cute.

What the hell? Did I just think he was cute? I thought I was straight!

Luhan suddenly noticed he was staring at him and shook his head, “Sorry, I-I was thinking about something.”

Minseok extends his hand and introduces himself to Luhan. “Names Minseok, it’s nice to meet you.” Luhan takes his hand and shakes it firmly.

He lets go and turns to the other guy behind the counter.

“I’m Jongdae.” He smiles and offers his hand to Luhan. He takes it and smiles, shaking his hand quickly.

“So do you wanna get started on your leg?” Jongdae starts walking around to the counter picking up his box of tools, and sets it down on a little table that has two chairs on either side.

“Yeah, sure!” Luhan follows Jongdae.

“So what seems to be the problem?” Jongdae slightly lifts his leg, examining it for any loose bolts, missing springs, and what not.

“Actually, my leg is getting kinda small, and it keeps coming loose when I walk long distances, which is almost everyday.” Luhan swings his leg back and forth and his leg from the knee down falls off.

“Alright, well um you see.. MINSEOK IT’S YOUR AREA OF EXPERTISE, I CAN’T DO THIS.” Jongdae jumps up and shrieks getting both Sehun and Minseok’s attention, scaring Luhan at the same time.

“Hehe, excuse me.” He dashes to the back of the store.

“Sorry Sehun, why don’t you talk to Jongdae, you can go to the back if you want.” He pats his shoulder and makes his way to Luhan.

“So what seems to be the exact problem again?” Minseok sees his leg on the floor and Luhan repeats himself.

“It’s too small and as you can see, keeps falling apart.” He rephrases his past statement and picks up his old leg.

“Alright let me find the model and I’ll replace it for you.” Minseok gets up and briskly makes his way to the back finding the part for Luhan. He finds it and brings it down. He takes it out of the box and pads towards Luhan.

Minseok takes the old part and puts it behind his back then puts the new model next to Luhan. He starts to assemble the leg onto him and while he does he looks up at Luhan. He looks sad. He doesn’t want or mean to pry but he asks, “Are you alright? You seem down.”

He snaps out of his thoughts and looks down facing Minseok

Here we go again.

Luhan’s at a loss for words. There’s just something about him that he finds intriguing.

“I uhm, I-”

“He’s sad because Tao called him ‘feminine and weak’.”

“AM NOT.”

“ARE TOO! You totally sulked once he walked by and I had to buy you to orders of Taro bubble tea.” Sehun retorts and crosses his arms, huffing at Luhan.

“Whatever. So what? He’s like my idol.” Luhan murmurs to himself, blowing the bangs out of his eyes.

“Did you say Tao?” Minseok asks Luhan.

“Yeah, why?” Luhan just stares at his nose trying hard not to start staring at him again.

“Is he missing his right leg and left arm?”

“Yeah.” Don’t stare. Don’t stare. Don’t stare. Luhan chants it like an incantation in his head.

“That was the guy that tried to rob us earlier today.” Minseok sits back and ponders on the thought.

Luhan doesn’t say anything back to him, he just shrugged his shoulders and looked everywhere else but Minseok’s face.

Minseok was really confused. He could see and feel Luhan staring at him while he worked. It was a little awkward so he would look up to him and try to make small talk but he would only say one-worded answers and start looking everywhere else.

Minseok was almost done with Luhan’s leg, he got down to assembling the ankle and realized he was missing the toes. It wasn’t an essential part for legs but no one wants to walk around with no toes, even if they’re just metal.

“Shoot, hold on, I’ll be right back.” Minseok abruptly gets up and walks to the storage room. He searches the same spot he got the part from to see if he missed anything but finds nothing. He walks back and sees Sehun and Chen begin to walk to the door.

“Where are you going?” Luhan and Minseok say simultaneously and look at each other.

“Sehun’s gonna take me to the bubble store across the street. I clocked out already so I’ll see you tomorrow alright Minseok? And it was nice to meet you Luhan. See ya tomorrow!” By now the two were already out the door and walking towards the store.

“Wow. He just left. Whatever, I’ll just cut if from his pay-check.” Minseok sits back down and examines his work to check if anything was loose or missing.

“You can cut his pay-check?” Luhan widens his eyes and asks him.

“Yeah, along with my parents, I own this store.” He smiles. “Well it turns out that I’m missing the toe parts and we won’t get new shipments until late tomorrow, so would you mind coming in tomorrow at let’s say, seven p.m.?”

Luhan has to think for a second. He doesn’t know why he does but he just, does. He thinks about seeing Minseok again.

That would be nice. And I could probably ask him about his hand.

“Yeah! That’s fine! One of Sehun’s parts may break again, so tomorrow would be great!” Luhan stands up testing his new leg. It moves a lot smoother now, he can’t feel any nicks when he bends his knee or when he walks.

“Awesome! Let me ring you up, and we can call it a day!” Minseok packs up his box, and puts it away while walking behind the counter. Minseok punches in a few numbers and a bell dings as the drawer opens. Luhan sees the green numbers pop up on the screen and pulls out his wallet in a flash.

“Twenty-f- Oh. Okay.” Minseok takes the money that was suddenly in front of him.

“Thanks for coming by today.” Minseok gives Luhan a subtle smile and Luhan’s blushes a little.

“Thanks for fixing my leg, and in advance thank you again, since I’ll see you tomorrow.” Luhan starts walking for the bubble tea store but stops when he hears Minseok call him.

“Wait Luhan! If Jongdae’s still in there, could you tell him he’s in deep tomorrow?” Minseok laughs a little and puts his hand on the frame of the door.

Luhan looks at his hand and sees the scratches which remind him, “Sure, no problem. And tomorrow you gotta tell me about your hand,” he nods his head in Minseok’s hands direction, “Then I’ll tell you about my leg.” Luhan wiggles his foot and starts walking.

“Wait, how do you know about my hand?!” Minseok shouts but Luhan already jogged into the store.

Minseok can see Luhan waving his hand at Sehun and Jongdae but he turns to face him and winks at him.

Minseok is a little surprised but shakes it off.

That boy is something else.