His footsteps crunched at the gravel.

Each step, noise akin to metal squawking irritatingly, Takara groaned in protest.

Takara was a man more than half cyborg. He came to terms with the fact plenty years ago, but the changes he had to adapt to were difficult. For example, he had lost the strong and bulky figure he once held. He was not encouraged to rebuilt his physique either, as muscles would impede the nerve connections in his spine.

A rucksack slung over one shoulder casually, he looked over the rusty oak doors of the backstreet alleys. There was no human cacophony, so no sound went unheard. 

Takara hated his new body, simply because it was noisy as fuck.

Inviting himself through the doors of a store called the Mimeshow, the redhead in a dark trench coat stood out in the run-down building.

"Welcome to Mimeshow," the teenage male, exhausted from boring business manning the counter groaned, flipping through a newspaper at his desk.

Giving the boy a light nod, Takara decided he'd take a look around for what he would need.

ー

Leer's a bear, I've said this about thrice now. Apprehended by Takara thirty seconds into a city, he was given his irritatingly bulky collar and couldn't figure out a way to pry it out of his neck. 

He liked the shiny hard stone on it, but that was everything. It was hot and stifling and uncomfortable, but Takara wouldn't let him anywhere without it.

Dashing across the busy crowd, his tiny figure going through legs, his fur brushing past bags and his paws occasionally stepping on a human foot-- 

He made it out of the horde of humans eventually, and ducked right into an alley. In the shadow of a large trash bin, he placed a brown object on the ground. A human 'purse'-- Takara called it something weird, but all that mattered was the fact that it contained money.

Money, that weird human thing that smelled reaaaallly nice to Leer. It wasn't food, but there was this unique tang to it that seemed like alluring to him. Leer was obsessed with it, and Takara usually encouraged his addiction of the item. 

Leer liked to stash them in his secret place on the boat, but now and then they keep going missing! So he finds himself taking more from humans every time they come to a human place. 

ー

An indescribable cluster of items were dropped on the desk, at once, a bulk of things ranging from wood planks to steel bars to wires and was that bloody machine oil, in laughable amounts, no less.

The scary-looking redhead customer gave him a condescending gaze, a glare indescribably haunting as he spoke simply, a deep, croaky tone mixed in with a metallic noise.

"How much is it?"

All his movements were croaky and as he browsed the shop, the shopkeeper couldn't held but notice his customer was most possibly wielding a metal prosthetic. More than one, definitely.

Now that he's heard the customer's voice-- was his voice technologically operated as well? That sounded ridiculously modern, a science very beyond current understanding. This man was not a normal person. Was he a noble? A Marine? An influential item in government hands, because that was where these things would be available.

Running his eyes along the materials-- ten large wooden planks, five metal strips, two rolls of wire, and four bottles of machine oil. Assembly tool set, and a box of nails.

"What in the hell are you trying to build?" he could help gawking.

Startlingly, the redhead customer burst into laughter. A deep, throaty chuckle, with little device feedback, he lips curling wide. A gentle face on a seemingly fierce man.

"They're for maintenance purposes," he explained simply, "for my fishing boat, and for me."

"For your probably metal limbs hidden under that thick coat of yours?" an insensitively bold inquiry was intentionally made.

"Pretty much," the vague response.

Eyeing the customer for a long, scrutinizing moment, the shopkeeper smiled. "Your total's two thousand beri, sir."

ー

Takara seemed to have walked in on a very strange scene. Mainly the image of a very familiar bear trying to pry its head out from under a large garbage bag. The bear was heaving, pushing desperately and whining, pawing at the overwhelming bag ten times his size.

Takara lit a cigarette in his mouth, watching the scene.

All of a sudden Leer's struggling succeeded, his head popped free and Leer was sent wheel-barreling backward until he magnificently crashed headfirst into another wall. 

So Leer began tearing up from the bump on its head.

Takara breathed out a large cloud of smoke.

"...what on earth are you doing?" 

Leer shrieked a high-pitched "Ryaaaah!" in complaint.

"I'm gonna guess, some human didn't notice you and threw a bag on you?" Picking up the five purses he saw at the side and placing them into his rucksack, Takara picked up the bear, gently cradling the grizzly in his arms. "And you were asleep and rudely awoken."

"Gyaraa," Leer muttered back.

Takara sighed, letting the bear cling to his back. Perhaps due to it being brought up by a human, it held more human characteristics than human. That was eerie and frankly disturbing, but oh well.