He brushes the back of his hand against its temple, tucking away the mop of blue hair behind its ear. Its screws are tightly latched onto its metal plates, especially the ones lined under each of its eyes were the most visible. He looks down at its hands and grasps one of them in his own. He lifts it up to inspect it.

He sighs.

He turns around for his box of tools and ruffles his spiked blond hair tied back in a small ponytail. His rolled-up sleeves reveal a fancy tattoo that swirls around his arm in black ink, reading Len.

He'd been forced by Gumi to get it in the acme of his career when his fame started to spread to every part of the town... even past the Mechanics. It was puzzling for Len to hear that his reputation had even reached the town at all, but Gumi, upon hearing his name echo throughout the markets, wanted him to take safety precautions.

Just in case they come after him.

He didn't understand how a simple tattoo would help his case, but Gumi insisted. He'd always trusted her when he was stuck in the worst situations imaginable, why should he doubt her this time?

But Gumi only brought it up because of his fame.

Yet Len had wanted nothing more than his fame to die down.

He didn't intend to climb to the top of the pedestal as he did, but with where he's at, he can't seem to get down. One by one he tried inching his way down, thankfully to his avail. Most had forgotten his name by now (as he'd always roll down his sleeves whenever he went out in public), but a couple of times he'd hear it come up and he'd try to hide his face before anyone could recognize him.

Len takes out a screwdriver from the box and utters an "Aha, there you are" under his breath. He saunters over to the robot he was inspecting before and walks around to its back side. Len uses his screwdriver to loosen a few screws on the nape of its neck.

He opens the metal plate that reveals all the mechanical parts and motionless cogs within its interior. Len goes around the room, grabbing extra gears and screws as he works back and forth with the robot. He takes out and replaces its malfunctioning parts with the new ones he'd picked out. Ultimately, he screws the plate back in place, walks around to the robot's front, and takes a step back.

"So, Len, I got the extra cogs and gears you needed..." a faint, feminine voice says as it increasingly gets louder by each footstep he hears coming up the stairs. "I don't know if they're the right sizes. Of course, you weren't specific, but-"

Len scrambles to try and act normal as his attempts to cover up the robot by standing in front of it fail. Gumi stands a few feet before him, holding, not too many, cogs and gears in her hands. He notices the unamused expression plastered on her face and he starts to sweat.

Gumi sighs. "Len, what are you doing?"

"N-nothing!" he stutters. His eyes follow her as she goes to a table by the window and puts the spare parts down. She walks over to Len. "It's just-"

She lowers his arm covering the face of the robot. Suddenly, her stern expression melts into a warm grin.

Len sighs and confesses, "I didn't want to leave him there unfinished..." He steps away from it so Gumi can see it more clearly.

She puts a hand on his shoulder and smiles sympathetically. "I miss her, too, Len."

He looks down at the locket wrapped around his neck, clasps it in his hand, and presses a button to open it up. A black and white photograph of a girl with goggles atop her short hair and a face similar to that of Len's is seen in the inside of his locket.

"I just... wish I'd known what'd happened to her."

"Len, you know what happened to her- they took her." Gumi attempts to comfort him.

He pulls his arm back. "You don't know that!" Regretting shouting at her, he softens. "... Nobody knows if that's even true."

He takes a deep breath and trots over to the gigantic window that replaces three of the four walls. He presses a hand to the glass. The landscape showcases their city below, the clocktower in the center of it, and the Mechanics in the far distance with steam rising up from the top of it all.

"Where are you?" he utters under his breath.

After a moment of silence, Gumi, trying her best not to be rash, says softly, "You started this with Rin, didn't you?" She's talking about the robot. She caresses its cheek and twirls its blue hair in her fingers.

"She," Len replies firmly. Although, noticing the harshness in his tone, he restates his answer more subtly. "She started it." He takes a pause and explains it further, "Rin proposed to me the idea that we should start a project- she suggested we build a robot. But the opportunity for me to help build the central clocktower came up and I... never had the time to work with her on it. She started without me and then..."

He intentionally leaves the sentence hanging. Len stares at the robot's closed eyes and walks around to its back.

Meanwhile, Gumi rummages through the mini drawers under the surface of the work table and notices a small, leather-covered diary inside among the scrap materials. She takes it out and drops it atop the table as she coughs from its dust. She opens to the first page.

'I thought it'd be a good idea to keep a journal of our progress on the robot. I couldn't seem to find the right kinds of materials to use for it (aside from the nuts and bolts and extra cogs we keep lying around), the metal, at least. I realized all the ones my brother Len and I keep around here are beginning to rust or have been rusting already and I wouldn't want to use any of those.

Unfortunately, Len's busy working on the clocktower, so he couldn't be here to help me with the project. I'm still amazed at how the opportunity for him came up; I aspire to work as hard as him to become a great engineer!

Right now, I'll try my hardest with the robot and hopefully make Len proud with how much of it I get done. I should start sketching out the robot's design... hopefully he'll approve of it!'

Below Rin's writing is a full body sketch of the robot. From its blue hair to all the functions she wanted it to have, it seems she had it all planned out. Assuming Len didn't have her journal opened earlier, he must've finished it yesterday and is only doing the first test of it today.

Gumi flips past a few more entries until she reaches the blank pages near the back of the journal. She returns to the filled pages and looks at the final one Rin wrote.

'I haven't finished much of it except its torso and the base of its head. I'm not too good with the inner workings of the robot- or really, anything I build- as I always have the right parts, but never the right placement. When Len comes home, I'll see if he can figure it out; he's much more skilled in that field compared to me.

Speaking of Len, earlier today he told me about something called the ocean. He tells me it's a huge body of water, which was hard to wrap around my head considering the biggest bodies of water we've seen here have been those in buckets or tiny puddles from the rain. However, he says the reason we never see it is because of the Mechanics.

One day, I wish to see the ocean.

Kai, Japanese for ocean or sea... Maybe I should name the robot Kaito.'

Gumi smiles at the thoughts of seeing Rin again. She was never quite fond of her back when she hung out with her and Len. "She's too... perky," Gumi used to say about her. But after the day she disappeared, she started warming up to Rin as if she was her sister as well.

She closes the diary and looks back at Len who's fixing up its torso.

"So... its name's Kaito?"

"Yeah..."

"... How many times have you read her journal?"

"Probably a million." He runs his hand through his spiked blond hair. "My one regret is just leaving her to work on it alone... I wish I was there to help her. Or just... always be there for her in general."

Before Gumi can respond back, she hears the whirring of cogs. They glance at the robot and watch in amazement as its eyes open to a shining blue from glass and metal.

Len smiles at her in pure joy just seeing the robot come to life.

"Kaito..." He stares directly at it.

'If only Rin was here to see this.'

"Your name is Kaito."

. . .

Word Count: 1546

. . .

Side notes: In a steampunk AU with twin engineers Rin and Len, Len grows famous for helping to build the central clocktower and ultimately misses out on helping Rin with their project on a robot. After Rin goes missing and is rumored to be taken by them that live past the Mechanics- a great wall of machinery keeping cities enclosed within- Len decides to finish the robot and names it Kaito in her honor. With his childhood friend Gumi and robot Kaito, the trio journey to find out what happened to Rin and see what's past the Mechanics.

A/N: It's an upcoming fic I'm super excited for, okay?