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Sung was fascinated with technology. He couldn’t avoid being knowledgeable in it of course, but it was one of the things he was quite passionate about.
He couldn’t avoid it because he was partly made of technology; he was a cyborg, technically. Nothing like Havve, with just a few organs and mostly machine parts held together out of necessity. Sung was more… minimalist, sophisticated. His skeleton had been swapped out for a sturdier metal frame, his chest light attached right to it, protruding out of the skin of his chest. He couldn’t really remember why or when this had been done, if it was his choice, had some ulterior purpose, or maybe he had just been made like that.
That wasn’t the interesting part for him. No, the interesting part, that he had been tinkering with for as long as he could remember, was that he could upgrade himself. It was fairly easy at his current place in time; little, editable microchips, that he could implant under his skin and test out for a while, and then attach them straight to his ‘bones’ if he wanted something more permanent. It was fairly messy to do, and he really only trusted himself, but golly, it was fascinating .
Anything that he wanted to keep, his absolute favourites, could not live without these enhancements, those were lined up and down his sternum, the most important ones close to the chest light. It felt safer to put them there, right in his centre, but still close enough to the surface to fuss with.
He was always acquiring these little chips, with some function built in, that he’d tinker with, adjust the settings, see how they interacted. If he wasn’t making music, he was probably bent over his workbench with tweezers and magnifying glasses and lights, wires trailing everywhere, weird computer programs open and showing strange languages. It seemed quite the contrast to how he usually was, bouncing off the walls and full of energy. But it was just a different kind of energy, with an inward focus rather than outward.
This was the third step, after the first step of tinkering, the second one of field testing. A chip, promising various vision enhancements, that he had set under the skin of his forearm where the muscle swelled up under his elbow. It was a little difficult to only have the use of one hand to get it in and out, but if it worked out well after this next testing session, he wouldn’t have to bother with it any longer.
All he had turned on in it was enhanced night vision. He wanted to make sure it only really worked in the dark, that it didn’t just turn up the brightness he saw at all times. It did just as he wanted, after some remote adjustments. There were supposedly other wavelengths that could be seen with it, which was interesting, but it would be so much more useful to him if he could reverse engineer the night vision, make bright situations dimmer. Well, not exactly useful to Sung, but still more useful.
It was supposed to be easy. All he had out was a scalpel, tweezers, alcohol, some sticky gauze and a tray to drop the chip into. It would just be a quick cut, pluck the chip out, slap some gauze on and then onto the fun stuff. He entertained the thought that he wouldn’t even scab over by the time he was done, he could just pop the chip back in nice and easy.
Of course it wasn’t easy.
He hit the chip- apparently it had moved or his hand stuttered or something, which surprised him, making him over-compensate, moving the scalpel too far, too deep. All he noticed was a clicking noise, and a little black thing flying out of his arm, a tap as it hit the floor. He didn’t quite feel what he had done, not yet. He set the scalpel down, tsk’d out an annoyed breath through his teeth, scooted his chair back and got down on the floor to look for it.
He thought he found it, that it had left a little trail of drops of blood, but when he saw another drop hit the floor, he finally looked at his arm.
It was a bad cut. Like, a really bad cut. Looking at it made Sung’s stomach turn; dark red flesh and bubbles of white fat, with what he kept assuring himself wasn’t the shine of his frame peeking out underneath it. He pressed his palm over it. It was a line starting up by his elbow, leading down towards his hand, and every time he moved his arm or wrist or anything, he could feel just a little bit more blood ooze out. He held the injured arm to his side, knowing there was no way he could stitch himself back up as long as he couldn’t move it.
This was going to get real bad, real fast, so he started yelling.
He was home, and at worst everyone was asleep, being slow to hear him but someone would come eventually. Still, that didn’t stop his voice from being shrill, cracking from fear.
There was an all too polite knock at his door before it swung open. It was Havve. He scanned the room for a moment before settling his gaze on Sung.
“Havve..! I- please, I need you to help me. There’s, uh, a first-aid kit in my bathroom, behind the mirror, I think I need stitches?” Havve nodded, moved quickly. Sung must’ve looked pretty bad if he was going this quick. He kept babbling. “I was just- there was an upgrade I wanted to make, a vision one, I just had to get the chip out and do that but, but I hit it, and then I guess I slipped, I don’t remember Havve, but the chip fell- I dropped it, and I started looking for it before I saw what I did, and now it’s bad and…”
Over the course of Sung’ explanation, Havve had gotten the kit, gotten what he needed, sat next to Sung on the floor, and started cleaning the blood off. Sung had gotten over-excited and had run out of breath, he had to take an obviously shaking breath in. Sung made this high pitched sound, a drawn out vowel, and he tried to keep his shoulders from shaking. His head fell forward, he didn’t want Havve to see him so… like this.
Have shuffled forward, pressed his shin into Sung’s knee. He worked fast, making close, broad stitches. He held Sung’s arm steady, his grip firm and comforting, tapping his pinky up and down against Sung’s skin. He pretended not to notice Sung crying, that he was so focused he didn’t see little drops of water hit his thighs.
Finally the last bit of the cut was closed up, everything was pressed back together. There were a few little beads of blood where he started, but Sung was probably fine. Still, he looked up at Sung, to make sure he did it right. It was a bit of a role reversal.
Sung didn’t look up right away, so Havve gently shook his arm back and forth. Sung brought his head up, and he was a mess. There were obvious dried tear stains down his face, more welling in his eye. The colours in his iris were swirling around quickly, he was obviously still in panic mode. When he was calmer, the colour was static, but as his emotions spiked, they started to move. Havve twitched his head down and then back up angled slightly, a silent question.
“...Oh! You- you’re done?” Sung sniffled, looking down at his arm. Just skin and thread. “That’s great, thank you. I can finish it off, so..” He started to reach for the needle, but Havve moved away, knotting the thread. He reached into the kit for scissors, and snipped off the excess thread. He set the needle down, and, in a rare moment of tenderness, he put his hand over the stitched cut and squeezed Sung’s arm with his other hand.
Sung grabbed Havve’s arm, mirroring his grasp. He let out a breath, still calming down, the tension wavering in his throat. Normally Havve wouldn’t be so physically affectionate, but this was a special situation. Sung was strongly affected by his emotions, so much so that they could make him sick. This was just as important as stitching him up; Sung being upset over getting hurt could slow down his healing or even make him more vulnerable to infection.
“Thanks,” Sung murmured, staring at their arms. “It’s like an arm sandwich, huh?” he asked, brightness coming back into his voice. Havve gave a gentle squeeze in response. “Could you bandage me up?”
Havve nodded, letting go to rummage through the kit again. He had to use a larger bit of gauze, wrapping tape around Sung’s arm to hold it on. As soon as he was done Havve stood up and headed to the door leaving Sung to search for the chip. Sung did not get the memo, and followed after Havve.
“It was lucky you were around! Meouch never would have let me hear the end of it, and Phobos-” he cut himself off, glancing down at his bandaged arm. He let out an almost nervous laugh, raised his forearm. “I don’t think the lord’s gonna even like looking at this, let alone what’s underneath it.”
Havve stared at him, waiting for Sung to get to his point.
“I just- just wanted to let you know I’m glad you’re here. That’s all.” Havve nodded, turned his shoulders to walk away. He stopped, turning back and giving Sung a thumbs-up as extra confirmation.