Kui Xian getting angry had changed my way of doing things. I stopped trying to create a heart, as I understood I would never be able to do that. Instead of trying to create one, I decided to help Kui Xian grow a heart by making him interact with human beings and letting him go alone outside sometimes, with the promise he wouldn’t cause any trouble and wouldn’t get caught. The only problem was that, now that he could get angry, he sometimes got angry at people who accidentally bumped into me on the street, and I had to calm him down and apologize to people in his place because he would refuse to do so.

With the anger also came his ability to pout and sulk. Yes, my robot was pouting and sulking. And sometimes he would sulk if I didn’t want to play Starcraft with him, and he wouldn’t talk to me or hug me for an hour or so. And then he would himself feel kind of needy, and simply come to me to hug me. That’s the kind of robot he was, becoming more and more like a human being.

I had asked him a lot of times about how he knew I was in danger that other day, but he always replied something like “I don’t know” or “I just knew it”, which didn’t help me understanding how the hell he could’ve known. So I thought that maybe he had followed me all along, locking the door I don’t know how when he had left my place, or maybe he really had some kind of weird robotic instinct.

Kui Xian had also started to understand more and more what were emotions. He still had never felt sadness, but I could tell he was starting to get what it was like. He had seen me cry more than once, not always because of sadness, but he now knew when I cried because I was sad, and when I cried because of too many emotions all at once.

There was one problem in all of this: I had fallen in love with Kui Xian.

Yes, I had fallen in love with my robot.

I had already started to notice a while ago, but my feelings only grew stronger and stronger as time went by. Days, weeks, months. Oh yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that Kui Xian had given me a silver necklace with my name in Korean as a pendant for my birthday. I had been so happy I had jumped on him to hug him tight, and I had almost made him shut down for good because he had fallen and hit his head on the floor. I had apologized right away as his eyes had flashed with a lot of colors before becoming dark brown again. A smile had appeared on his lips - though his eyes still couldn’t smile - as he had told me it didn’t matter, and it was nothing, and he was glad I liked the pendant. I had replied that I was glad he had noticed my love for sparkling things.

“Mimi.”

I smiled, getting out of my thoughts to see him staring at me, his head tilted to the side. He did that a lot, it was adorable. We were at the terrace of some café, and I was slowly drinking my cappuccino as he watched human interactions.

“Yeah?”

Our conversations always started like that. Him, calling my name, or me, calling his name. The other one replying, and the conversation starting.

“Was does happiness feel like?”

I thought for a moment. There was no way I could explain how an emotion could feel like…

“I… I don’t know how to explain, Kui Xian. Being happy is… wonderful. When you know that you are.”

“There are times when you don’t know you are happy?”

“There are. A lot of people are happy and they don’t notice it until they lose what made them happy.”

“Are you happy?”

“I am.”

“What makes you happy?”

I could’ve answered a lot of things, from “everything” to “I don’t know”. But I had to be honest with Kui Xian. I had promised myself I would always be honest with Kui Xian, because this was the only way he could become more like a human being without being corrupted.

“You, Kui Xian. You make me very happy every day.”

He took his time to process the information, before tilting his head to the other side.

“I don’t understand. How do I make you happy?”

I smiled at him.

“You are here, Kui Xian. You talk to me, you try to understand me, you try to understand the world. You try to understand human beings, and you’re becoming more and more like one. I’m very happy that you make so much progress, and I’m also very happy that you’re still here with me, when you could go anywhere without me being able to do anything to make you stay with me.”

He seemed confused. That was also another expression he could now have without any problem. He always looked confused when he really didn’t understand something.

“Why would I go elsewhere? How could I go elsewhere? You…”

He lowered his voice, knowing I didn’t want him to tell the world he was a robot.

“You created me. You created me so I could keep you from being lonely. So I stay with you. I don’t understand. Why would I go elsewhere?”

“Kui Xian, I told you before. If you have any desire, you can just go for it. I don’t want to keep you in some kind of invisible cage only because I was the one who created you. I was lonely, and I created you because of that, but I also want you to feel free. If you want to leave, then leave.”

I couldn’t believe these words came from my mouth. But they were true. I wanted Kui Xian to be free. I wanted him to be with me, of course, but if he wanted to leave, I would have to let him do so…

He tilted his head to the other side - again - and looked even more confused.

“But you don’t want me to leave.”

I sighed.

“Of course I don’t want you to leave! Kui Xian, I told you, I really like you. I don’t want you to leave, but if you’d be happier somewhere else, then I can’t do anything to it…”

He pouted, and I couldn’t help but smile at seeing him being so adorable.

“I don’t even know what being happy feels like. So I can’t tell if I’ll be ‘happier’ elsewhere. If being ‘happy’ is ‘not being sad’, then I guess I am…”

“It’s not only ‘not being sad’, it’s also being ‘satisfied’.”

He seemed thoughtful for a moment, and then shrugged.

“Anyways. I don’t know what it feels like to be ‘happy’ so I will stay with you because you are ‘happy’ because of me.”

He tilted his head to the side again while staring at me with his dark eyes.

“And I won’t let you say no. Or else I won’t hug you for a while.”

I laughed.

“You already do that pretty often! It’s not like I’ll die from not having enough hugs. But okay, I won’t say anything more about this. I like it when you hug me.”

He also smiled, but only with his mouth. As usual, his eyes wouldn’t smile.

“I like to hug you too.”

We became silent for a while, and when we came back to my place he hugged me from behind, hiding his face against my neck. He did that a lot recently…

“Mimi.”

He didn’t wait for me to reply, and just hugged me tighter.

“I think I understand what being ‘happy’ is. I understand because when I hug you, I like it. And I don’t think I could feel like that if I could never hug you. So I think I am ‘happy’.”

I closed my eyes, just enjoying his arms around me, and raising my hand to softly take his. His fingers slowly slid between mine, and we stayed like that until I couldn’t resist anymore. I turned in his arms, leaving his hand only to take it again once I was facing him. My other hand went to the back of his head, and I pressed a soft kiss on his lips, closing my eyes as his opened wide in confusion. And then I broke the kiss and the hug, and went to my room to throw myself on my bed, my cheeks burning up as I wanted to face palm myself a thousand times for what I had just done.