Mondo was unapologetically late to work the morning after he drank himself into yet another blissful almost-coma. Right away, he noticed that Kazuichi was acting even weirder than he usually did.

"Explain yourself," he demanded. Kazuichi didn't bother to deflect.

"...Boss had Miu and I make some adjustments, like we talked about..."

"And?"

"We upped Taka's strength last night. He's supposed to help us move stuff and do the heavy lifting now."

"Oh." That made sense, Mondo guessed. Kiyotaka couldn't exactly throw his back out. "So what's your deal? What're you all jittery about?"

"I just feel like there must be a reason that they don't usually do that to the units, you know? Especially since Taka works kind of weird. There's no telling what kind of shit his hardware could get up to. There's metal in there."

Weren't you the one who wanted to tinker with him in the first place?

"I guess you have a point. But it'll probably be fine," Mondo said, and his tone was even less convincing than he had expected it to be. He had a bad feeling.

Mondo's gut feeling was quickly vindicated. By the afternoon, Kiyotaka had caused noticeable damage to the hulls of several cars in the forms of scratches and bumps and even a broken taillight. He bowed as low as he could over and over again, profusely apologizing for his error all the while, as their boss assessed the level of destruction and berated him. That was going to come out of their pockets somehow.

Taka had a wonky system, alright. Fujisaki had said something about that. The persecom couldn't control his own strength with the artificial barrier in his programming removed. And once it had spiraled out of control it had really spiraled, like a falling line of dominoes.

"Shoulda left you in the garbage heap," Boss-man spat, slapping the roof of the car that Taka had nearly totaled. "You've been a hell of a lot more trouble than you're worth!"

"You don't have to be such a dick about it," Mondo retorted, like a reflex. He shouldn't have said anything at all, but it was too late for that. Boss-man's head snapped in his direction.

"What did you say?"

"He's right!" There was an edge of fear to Miu's voice despite her attempts to look unfazed. "I mean, Kaz and I DID warn you that there was a risk to rolling out new hardware settings so fast, but you just couldn't pass up the opportunity to fire a guy or two and replace them with a—"

"Enough!" Their boss literally threw down the towel. The one he'd been using to uselessly wipe at grime as if that would fix a crumpled hood. He stomped in Mondo's direction, even though it seemed that his anger should have been directed at Miu instead, and jabbed a finger into his chest. "If you two are so hell-bent on standing up for the fucking robot, then I'm sure you won't mind cleaning up its messes, either! ...Fix the damn thing. And clean up this mess. Just get it done."

He stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Kiyotaka flinched. He shouldn't have flinched. What could he possibly be afraid of? Did he know fear? He looked scared.

The sun was setting and Mondo wanted to go home, but he couldn't. He had to finish the repairs. Make a lot of unpleasant phone calls. Miu and Kazuichi had to reverse their mistakes, revert Taka to normal. Or, at least, to whatever he was before.

"I'm sorry," Taka said again when Miu approached him, quieter this time. Kazuichi interrupted him when he tried to say it again. Something about how it would be more comfortable to do this in the other room and Mondo needed privacy with the customers. When Taka tried to apologize a third time, he was hushed, and then he fell silent.

Mondo sighed into the empty room.

"Fuck."

He spent the next several hours trying to do what had to be done, not allowing himself time for complaints.

The strength incident was only the first sign of trouble, though.

Kiyotaka's unusual management style was difficult to understand if he wasn't around for whatever reason. It was near-impossible to figure out what his notes meant. When confronted he would simply argue that he was programmed for efficiency and that his method was the most efficient. That might have been true if all of his coworkers had been persecoms, too.

He was also socially awkward. He asked too many questions. He took instruction literally, so whenever he was yelled at and told to act differently, his whole personality seemed to reset, and it would then take an entire afternoon to convince him to go back to the way he worked before.

Eventually he was relegated to doing chores, but there was only so much to clean. When he ran out he would pester others for more work to do. Not a big deal, but the boss didn't like the idea that anything at all was distracting his underpaid laborers.

One day, Mondo arrived at the garage and couldn't find the persecom anywhere, and he didn't appear at any point during the day. Most days he would at least show up to mop unless he was out for maintenance or something. He was gone the next day, too, and the next. On the fourth Taka-less day, Fujisaki appeared. A different Fujisaki— his puny son. And Kiyotaka was with him. He looked off. He was too quiet. He didn't respond to Mondo's wave.

"We could go into the break room for some privacy if you'd—"

"Don't care," Boss-man interrupted. "Just tell me where we're at. I'm sick of this shit."

Chihiro Fujisaki looked tentatively over his shoulder at Taka, gulped, and turned back to his customer.

"He— Th-The model— really can't be repaired."

Boss-man groaned.

"Defective, huh? Figures."

"I'm sorry—"

"Quiet," the boss continued, interrupting Kiyotaka, who fell silent once more. "I think you've done more than enough."

"You're overreacting." Once again, Mondo surprised himself with his own voice. Chihiro shook his head, as though trying to warn him, and Mondo ignored him. He wasn't really scared of his boss anymore. Hardly gave a damn if he got fired, even. "Who cares if he's defective? Makes a better employee than half of the idiots you've hired anyway. Just let him mop floors and shit."

"I guess I do hire idiots! Your dumb ass is still here, isn't it?" Mondo had seen that one coming. He'd set it up, really. "You wouldn't know the position I'm in because YOU don't have to spend hours of your own time that could be spent doing other things correcting the damn thing's mistakes and teaching it how to function. I don't have that kinda patience anymore."

"Well—"

"Enough!" He turned his attention back to Chihiro, who looked just about ready to shatter into pieces. "Be honest. How much d'ya think I could get for it?"

Mondo's jaw dropped. Kiyotaka continued to stand there, as no one had told him to do anything else. Chihiro's eyes began to water.

"I-I don't really know... My father and I can't afford to buy persecoms off of customers and most shops wouldn't, um, have interest in a defective custom model. They're hard to sell."

"So, what? I'm just stuck with it?"

"W-Well, if you really wanted to sell, you'd probably have to go directly to the customer online, or..." Chihiro looked at Taka once more before continuing, and his face, this time, seemed apologetic. His voice was lower when next he spoke. "...The other option is, um, scrap."

"What, like with cars? Just dismantle it and sell the parts wholesale?"

"That's a pretty fucked up thing to discuss right in front of somebody!"

"What the hell are you talking about, Oowada?"

Mondo was done listening to this. He stepped forward from the place behind the counter where he had been more or less hiding from direct view.

"Take a nap, Taka," he ordered, pointing at one of the waiting room chairs. Kiyotaka blinked at him, his expression still too blank for his liking.

"...You'd like me to be seated and activate my privacy timer?"

"Yeah, that thing." Mondo stared at him until he obeyed and slumped into the chair, eyes closed, and then returned his attention to his boss, who looked ready to hit him over the head with a wrench. "...You NEED to chill the fuck out. Don't just talk about cuttin' people up to sell 'em for spare parts when they're literally standing right there!"

"He's not a person," Boss-man said in that slow sort of pace a person uses when they're talking to a kid, or an animal, or an idiot. "What part of that is so hard for you to understand? Why can't you get that through your thick skull?"

Mondo folded his arms. Tight, so his boss wouldn't notice the way that his hands were curling into fists. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He was not about to get into a screaming match with a man twice his age in front of the little Fujisaki. (And he wasn't going back to jail over punching a useless dick like his boss, either.)

"...I don't mind working with him. I know you've had nothing but complaints about his performance, but he makes my job easier. I don't have to worry about answering the phone or keepin' shit clean, and he helps me get all my tools and junk in order if he ain't already busy. It's not like it's hard."

"Don't care." Mondo wasn't expecting that, honestly. "You still have to keep an eye on him and redirect him all the time, don't you? I need you working on cars, not computers."

"But you made me the persecom wrangler!"

"And didn't you complain about that?!"

"I-I mean, sure, but that was before!"

"Before WHAT?"

The argument, pointless as it was, seemed to drag on for far longer than Mondo had intended it to. Long enough that Taka woke up at some point and Mondo had to yell at him to go back to sleep because they weren't finished. Eventually, Mondo's boss was so frustrated that, in his defeat, he seemed to finally calm down enough to be reasoned with.

"...I don't have time to sell the fuckin' thing," he eventually admitted. "I wouldn't know the first thing about where to find a robot scrap dealer."

"I— I could take care of it."

"Hmm?" Boss-man narrowed his eyes at Mondo in suspicion. "Whaddya mean?"

"I mean—" What DID he mean? Mondo wavered for a fearful moment. He wasn't even sure what he was so scared of. "I don't mind takin' him back to my place. Just to keep him out of our hair."

"Nice try, Oowada!" The other man laughed. "It's my unit. If anyone's getting the money for selling it, it's gonna be me!"

I found that fuckin' unit, Mondo thought, but he wasn't about to jeopardize his deal by saying so.

"I can just give you the money once somebody buys 'im. It'll probably take a while to find a buyer, right? S'not like I do anything outside of work, like school or anythin', so. I could look for somebody in my spare time."

"And exactly why the hell should I trust you?"

"Y'said it yourself. Who else is gonna hire me? What, I'm gonna rip ya off for a few grand and then end up unemployed? For what? What fuckin' good is that gonna do me?"

"You know we're talking about more than a few thousand dollars here."

"But it's still not enough to keep me alive for the rest of my life, is it?"

"I wouldn't put it past you to try!"

Convincing Mondo's boss to have a little humanity for once was not an easy task. It was a real uphill battle, considering that both men were infuriatingly stubborn in their own ways. Taka woke up again. He went back to sleep again, of course, as dutifully as he did everything else, but Mondo couldn't help but notice that he looked a bit less agitated about it this time. Maybe he was catching bits and pieces of the argument somehow. Maybe he knew somebody was fighting for him, at least, and that wasn't nothing.

"...Fine. Fine! If it'll get you people back to work and get the damn thing out of my life, do whatever the hell you think you're gonna do." Mondo almost smiled, but before he could go celebrating his victory, a firm hand was clapped on his shoulder, not out of camaraderie, but a warning. "But I'm warning you— you try and pull a fast one on me and you'll never work again. You'll go back to the slammer. Got it?"

That was a threat. A real threat. Mondo didn't know when he'd slipped up, but it wasn't implausible that his boss had seen him doing something that could get him in trouble. And he wasn't past ratting Mondo out, he was sure. Mondo donned a tight-lipped sort of smile to mask the anger that was surely smoldering behind his eyes.

"Hear ya loud and clear."

Mondo was careful not to move until he was, finally, alone. Or, no, he wasn't. In the shouting match he had completely forgotten about Fujisaki, somehow. The little guy had gone deathly quiet and was practically hiding.

"H-Hey— sorry about all that. Kinda forgot you were there, honestly." He laughed, but immediately felt bad about laughing.

Fujisaki was white as a sheet. And yet he wasn't shaking or on the verge of tears anymore. If anything, he looked closer to being angry. He glanced at the slumbering persecom in a nearby chair and then turned back to Mondo. He nodded.

"Thanks."

"Huh...?"

"For him, I mean." Fujisaki gestured vaguely at Kiyotaka. "It wasn't really my place to say anything, and I was scared, but he was just... he was just being so mean. Taka's really trying."

Mondo was so stunned that he couldn't respond to that for a moment.

"You— he lets you call him that?"

"He told me to."

"...Huh." Mondo fidgeted uncomfortably. "So you think of him, as, like. Just a guy. A-At least, that's what it kinda sounds like."

Fujisaki snickered.

"What, and you don't? You got really mad!"

"I just— I don't know! I try not to think about complicated shit! I'm not exactly the brightest."

"And who told you that you're not smart?"

"I—"

"Actually, don't answer that." Fujisaki sat down next to Kiyotaka, as if waiting for him to wake and break the news to him gently. "...I used to program AI myself back in the day. I guess I have a soft spot for it. Maybe I'm just being silly, but... I don't know. The ones I programmed really seemed to care after a while. And that was just something I made on my own in high school."

"You made a functional AI in high school and you won't let me call myself dumb?"

"It's not a competition!" Fujisaki groaned. "I don't think anybody's truly dumb unless they want to be. I don't know how to fix a car. You're good at that. That's something."

Mondo didn't think that mechanic work was rocket science (or advanced computer programming), but he shrugged it off and didn't argue.

"...Sit with Taka for a minute, would ya? I gotta, uh, explain some things to the other two."

"Fine by me!" Fujisaki nodded almost cheerfully. "He's probably got a few more minutes left on his timer. Do you want me to tell him what's going on if he wakes up?"

"I'd kinda rather do that myself... j-just tell 'im boss-man changed his mind and that he should stay at the garage after work and leave it at that."

With that settled, Mondo didn't need to look far to find his coworkers. He hit Kazuichi in the face with the break-room door.

"Watch what you're doing!"

"What were you doing up against the door?!"

"Eavesdropping! Duh!" Miu punched him as she said that. It actually hurt. "What the hell's going on out there?! It's hard to make anything out! Both of you ogres just sound like you're grunting and growling over food!"

"Oh, fuck off— you two owe me one. I convinced the boss not to scrap Kiyotaka."

"He was actually gonna do it?!" Kazuichi seemed shocked to hear it, which Mondo didn't understand. Mondo gestured defensively. He could only interpret it as some kind of attack, like he was being accused of making things up.

"Seemed pretty set on it! ...I mean, I guess he still is. He thinks he's givin' him to me to sell for him."

Both of Mondo's coworkers were shrieking at him before he had a chance to get another word in. They were legitimately frantic. When did they get so attached to the company robot anyway? (When did he?)

"You can't just sell him!"

"I wasn't gonna! Shit! I just told 'im that to settle it. For now. I'm supposed to take Taka back to my place and find a buyer in my spare time, but... I mean, I guess I'll have to figure somethin' out. Get some cash somewhere else, or pretend I lost him, maybe...?"

"Why do YOU get to keep him?!" Miu protested. She almost sounded like she was on the verge of petulant tears. "You don't even know anything about computers and you've spent this whole time pretending not to give a shit!"

"Because I'm the only one who had the balls to do somethin' about it. And that's that."

Mondo wasn't going to let either of them start shouting again, so he put a large hand on each one's closest shoulder and squeezed, leaning in so that he could lower his voice.

"...Look. I'm just stalling for now, alright? Taka's not ideal for the business, but he's worked hard. And boss doesn't deserve to chop him up and profit off of him when he never gave the guy a chance in the first place. Are we clear?"

"Okay," Kazuichi said, his body going limp with surrender once Mondo let go of him. "I'll see if I can come up with something, too, I guess. ...You're sure you can handle this?"

"Sure I am," Mondo said, quite obviously lying. Miu could tell.

He hoped he hadn't made an enormous mistake. ...And that Taka wouldn't kill him when he heard the news.

————

A/N: figured i should update something for you guys lol. writing has been hard lately for mental health reasons, but it's not for lack of ideas! there are still more aus i wanna write about these boys. please consider giving me serotonin (or just lots of money would be fine also)