“Kui Xian.”

“Yes?”

“Sing for me, please.”

His head tilted to the side, and I laughed as I made him listen to one of my favorite songs, Hope is a dream that doesn’t sleep. He listened to it carefully and sang it when it ended as I closed my eyes to listen to his beautiful, soft, velvet voice. It was very, very beautiful. But there was one thing missing. Again.

“Kui Xian” I said when he stopped singing. “Kui Xian, you need to put more feeling when singing.”

“Feeling?”

Oh, right. He didn’t have a heart. Of course he couldn’t sing with feelings.

“Listen to the song again. There’s something in there that the singer has and you don’t.”

He closed his eyes, listened to the song again. And again. And again. I left him with the song and continued researching for a way to give him a heart.

It had been two days now since he had opened his eyes. I had discovered that he didn’t like to “sleep” with clothes - didn’t like it at all, should I say - and I just left him “sleep” like he wanted to sleep. After all, as long as he was clothed during the day, I didn’t really mind him sleeping . He was a robot, anyways.

A robot I wanted to give a heart to, because he was my robot, and I felt guilty for “waking him up” before completing him.

“I think I can do it.”

I turned to see Kui Xian looking at me.

“You can sing with feelings?”

He didn’t reply, but he started singing with a soft voice. I closed my eyes to listen to him. There wasn’t any real “feeling” in his voice, but it was better than a few minutes ago. There was something that could seem like a “feeling”, but was not. I smiled when he stopped singing.

“You progressed a bit, Kui Xian. But it’s still not it.”

“Why can’t I do it?”

“Because you have to sing with the heart.”

“What is a heart?”

“It’s…”

How to explain it? I was a scientist, I knew what a heart was. But we were not talking about that vital organ we humans possess. We were talking about the poetic side of the heart. I was not good at explaining this.

“It’s… in reality, the heart is simply some kind of pump that make human beings live. But when I talk about a heart here, I’m talking about the place where you can have emotions.”

“What are emotions?”

“Joy, sadness, anger, loneliness… these are feelings. Every living being has them, and I want you to be able to feel them too.”

“Why do you want me to feel them? I am not a living being.”

“You are, Kui Xian. You may be a robot I created, but the fact that we can speak right now proves that you’re alive. And I want you to have feelings too so your life can be full of them, and not totally plain!”

I was almost yelling and crying at the end. I was upset because he had said he wasn’t a living being. Saying that was not something I would accept. Not only did it make my work seem useless, but I didn’t want Kui Xian to say that.

He looked at me for a moment, head tilting to the side. I sighed.

“Kui Xian, you are alive…”

He didn’t move, but I could tell he was wondering what to do. I sighed again.

“I… I need a hug… Kui Xian… please…”

He walked to me, and hugged me, just like the other day. Duh. I was crying now. I cried in his arms for a moment, and when I finally calmed down I just stayed in his arms. He was completely silent, and I thought I should add some breathing system to him, just to make him feel more human. And maybe add some kind of system into him to give him some kind of heartbeat, so it would be more reassuring when he was hugging me. That would be easy to do. But even with the heartbeat, it would be useless if he couldn’t feel anything.

“Kui Xian.”

“Yes?”

He didn’t move. Because he knew I still needed the hug or because I didn’t tell him to let go?

“Could you… sing again for me… please?”

He hugged me a bit tighter, and started singing softly in my ear. There wasn’t any breathing, which was very weird, and I promised myself to make him breathe before giving him a heart as I listened to the song. Of course, he only knew one song. But that was enough for now. His voice was so soft. So soothing.

I didn’t notice I had closed my eyes until I felt him tightening his hug to prevent me from falling on the ground because I had suddenly fallen asleep. I opened my eyes and moved back.

“Oh… sorry, Kui Xian.”

“Did you like it?”

“The song? Yes, I liked it a lot. But I should give you some breathing. It’s weird when you sing and there isn’t any puff of air.”

I smiled at him and kissed his forehead before taking his hand.

“But, you know what? Breathing or not, I like you a lot, Kui Xian.”

Not only because he was my robot. Also because, though he didn’t have a heart, I could feel somehow that maybe he could grow one without me having to make one for him…