Chapter Text
"Yeah, I can get it to you by Friday."
He's rummaging around, metal clanging with his every move, a phone squished between his ear and his shoulder because he needs both hands. His eyebrows furrow and he stops, sitting up properly on his little revolving chair, needing to grab the phone in his hand instead, indignant confusion riddling his expression.
"What do you mean it's not fast enough? Do you know how much work it takes to finish up even a standard level TX-20?" He's annoyed, his voice lilting into his deeper register when he's talking to morons on the phone, which happens more often than not lately.
"Get it to me by Thursday, or you're not getting paid," demands the voice on the other end of the phone before hanging up, a dial tone left ringing in Jihoon's ear and he swears. Loudly.
If he could afford to throw his phone against the wall, he would have, but Jihoon knows better and he places it down on his messy table full of metal, which if anyone looked at who wasn't Jihoon, would call junk. He runs a hand through his hair, frustration evident in every move he makes.
He can't afford to lose another job. Being an engineer paid well, especially with the type of robots he worked with, but only if you finished on time and Jihoon had never been good with deadlines. He was a perfectionist, and he always saw his work as art, though not many others would agree with him.
Although robots were common these days, there were still a lot of people who merely thought of them as soulless machines built to do a single job. Jihoon didn't. He knew that whoever worked on every piece of metal, every scrap of wiring and every piece of programming code did so with intent, with heart. If something was built with heart, it could never be soulless.
Jihoon exhales deeply and leans back against his chair, brown eyes narrowed towards the ceiling.
He rolls his head to the side, eyes slowly scanning across the limbs of metal put together to form a skeleton, standing there silently, waiting to come alive. This had been his distraction lately, his sole project and yeah, maybe he'd put off some other things in favor of it, but. He couldn't help it. He had a vision and he wanted to realize it.
But, fuck.
What the hell was he going to do about dinner?
---
"You better start busting your ass to get that done, Hoon."
He glares across the table at his best friend, sitting there with a very wide, very annoying 'I told you so' look on his face. Sometimes he really hates Seungcheol with a passion, he's clingy, always tries to make him do shit he doesn't want to do, and has the most shit eating grin he wants to punch off his face. He blames it on the fact that they basically grew up together, moved to the city when they were kids from different areas and somehow hit it off. Those areas were now flooded completely. Their families had left when the government issued warnings about living near the coastline, but no one had anticipated the earthquake that would eventually make most of the coastline obsolete. Jihoon would never know what the city he was born in looked like -- he was only five when they left.
"You're one to talk," Jihoon says over a shot of soju, one of the old beverages that had stuck the course of time. The burn down his throat is heavenly. It makes him forget how he hadn't eaten all day. "You work in a company, it's not the same thing being on your own."
Seungcheol rolls his eyes. He's heard this argument countless times before. "And how many times have I told you to come work with me? You know dad said you only need to ask for a job."
Jihoon scowls and runs a hand through his fringe, chestnut brown strands feathering back down just slightly over his eyes. "And how many times have I told you, I don't work well with people. You know that." He points out.
He sighs then, low and frustrated. "I can't lose this job, hyung."
The black haired boy across the table frowns, his arm resting casually against the top of the booth they're sitting in, the sounds of the bar ample around them. He's a year older than Jihoon, but they've always considered themselves to be brothers. "Do you need money?" Seungcheol asks, though he doesn't have to. He knows Jihoon is perpetually broke and it breaks his heart to see him struggling. He's always helped him out when he could, but Jihoon's pride wouldn't always let him.
"No I'm fine, thanks, I'll get it done." Jihoon finally looks at his friend again, a little re-assuring smile on his lips because it's the fact that Seungcheol offers, and is always there when he needs him is what makes him not punch his lights out when he's being a little shit.
"Well, in any case I'm buying dinner, and you can't say no." Seungcheol says with this certain look in his eyes that Jihoon knows means he'll have to fight him for it if he says anything and he just doesn't have the strength for it now, so he obliges quietly.
Under the table, he kicks at his friend's shin for good measure.
---
Thursday came and went and Jihoon narrowly managed to deliver the project. He wasn't happy with his work, but then again, he almost never was, always looking for things to fix-- to improve on. His dad had called him a perfectionist to a fault once and Jihoon couldn't help but agree.
He plops onto his couch with a quiet groan once he returns home from another long day's work. Sometimes he gets to work from home-- he prefers those days, but some days he has to travel around the city whenever called upon and he's exhausted when he comes home.
A little beeping sequence signals a machine coming alive the moment he sits down, the quiet sound of tank treads rolling across the the cement floor getting louder as it rounds the couch, revealing a little bot. "Welcome home," it says, the voice mechanical, robotic, but with somewhat of a human lilt to it even still.
Jihoon glances down. The little robot has tank treads and wheels for feet to keep him moving around easily, a body built mostly out of spare parts leftover from cars, planes, pipes and everything else Jihoon could think of to make it work properly. It had a pair of small headlights for eyes, a voice box settled just beneath it with a gold star imprint on it. "Hey Hosh," he greets, reaching over to give the bot a little pat on the top of its head. He'd named him Hoshi because of the star, and he was the first working robot Jihoon had ever built when he really started to get serious in his early teens. Now twentyone, they'd been together a long time.
"Tea, coffee, or juice?" Hoshbot asks. He wasn't exactly as developed as many of the robots nowadays, but Jihoon had tried to upgrade him to the best of his ability over the years with the resources he had available to him, so it was limited how much he could talk or behave like a person, but Jihoon still had an emotional attachment to him that he'd never be able to kick.
"Coffee, thanks," Jihoon responds and watches as he rolls back off towards the little part of his place he could call a kitchen. It only had an empty fridge and a small stove, but Jihoon had been gifted a coffee maker by Seungcheol years ago and he'd been able to program Hoshi into using it pretty easily. Of course he'd had to set it up so it'd be easy for him to work, but. Details.
Turning on his TV, Jihoon let the sounds of the world fill his living room for a moment, flipping between channels while he sipped his coffee. He liked being alone, it gave him energy for work, gave him the solitude that he craved in order to recharge to face the world day after day, though he never thought himself as being completely alone because he had Hoshi with him by his side. He'd tried to teach him how to tell jokes once, but Hoshbot hadn't understood and Jihoon knew it was because of old technology.
His thoughts wandered and so did his gaze, back towards the android skeleton standing in the corner of his room.
On one hand he was scared to work on him, the fear or failure the most pressing thing holding him back from going over there, to his work bench to keep realizing his dream, but. On the other hand, he really wanted to. And now he had the time, he had no deadlines, he was free to do what he wanted.
Jihoon stands and pads across the floor of his living room, turning on the light on his desk as he sits down on his revolving chair, pulling it over close to reach up and touch what was going to be a nose, a chin, holding his hand over the metal case meant to be the inside of a chest. Where the heart would be.
"Let's get you working, huh?"