Ch 46 – It’s All Your Fault
Yu Xi was scared senseless by Sanjay’s words, and as a result, refused to have anything to do with him. He didn’t even dare speak to the man.
This was not a result Sanjay had anticipated.
Hadn’t this robot said that he had lived for a very long time? Why was his psychological capacity so poor?
That evening, Yu Xi took Tau along to see Kersz. He repeated Sanjay’s words to Tau, and felt that the pirate captain’s words actually made sense.
Tau made no attempt at all to soothe him, and nodded after a moment of thought: “There really is some truth to it.” Tau clearly didn’t care much about the matter, and left it at that.
Yu Xi felt even more wretched.
“Was it inevitable that someone like Sanjay would emerge?” Yu Xi couldn’t help but ask Kersz when he got home.
“What?” Kersz was in the middle of organizing some documents, and didn’t react immediately.
“Was Sanjay’s emergence nurtured by malice?” Yu Xi asked him.
“Of course,” Kersz replied. “Extreme conditions shaped him into an extreme man.”
Yu Xi let out an ‘oh.’
Yu Xi went silent for a moment, then asked: “Then is he at fault for his extremism?”
Kersz stopped what he was doing and gave Yu Xi his full attention.
“You see, there are many people like him. They even existed in the society of the ancient humans. Peel back the layers of the wicked, and you’ll always find a core of unluckiness.” Yu Xi felt that Sanjay had the worst luck of them all.
Kersz kept silent.
Yu Xi continued: “All manner of people emerged in the society of the ancient humans, and their appearance seemed to symbolize a certain inevitability.”
Kersz asked him: “There are plenty of unreconciled loners like me out there, right?”
Yu Xi nodded.
Kersz went on: “Then do you like them as much as you like me?”
“Of course not! You’re the only dear friend I have!” Yu Xi hastily clarified.
“Then you see, some problems aren’t that complicated. You don’t always have to look at things from the perspective of society as a whole. From such a wide perspective, you can’t clearly see individual people.”
“Then do you think it’s possible that he was just born a bad kid?” Yu Xi asked. “Even if he wasn’t suddenly struck by tragedy, he might still have been a threat to society.”
Kersz smiled and shook his head: “There’s no need to make assumptions about something that never came to pass, or use it as a pretext to hate him.”
Yu Xi came to the sudden realization that the words he had just spoken sounded remarkably like something Sanjay would say: “If you want to hate someone, you invent a reason for him to deserve death by a thousand cuts. That way, you can freely unleash your malice.”
“His behavior is malicious enough on its own,” said Kersz.
“He’s an evil that humanity itself created, so are his detestable actions just the backlash humanity has to face?” Yu Xi asked.
“Did the people he’s kidnapped ever abuse him personally?” Kersz shook his head. “I’m talking about specific individuals, not just the handful he happened to have a connection with. Those people could have had a future, but now they’ve been stripped of the right to even be called people.”
“I could also be considered one of them,” said Kersz.
Yu Xi seemed to finally realize the difference here, and he suddenly understood: “If he kills you, I will make him die an agonizing death.”
Kersz: “You won’t like how it feels to kill someone.”
“No! It’s not the same!” Yu Xi shook his head. “You’re too important. You’re different.”
Yu Xi couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to lose Kersz. He had never had a relationship like this before, and his affection for Kersz grew with every passing day.
Yu Xi froze after saying this, then went on: “This kind of ‘difference’ applies to human society as a whole, doesn’t it?”
Every person was ‘different,’ and everyone had people they cared about. But when this sentiment was applied on a grand scale, it was just like his previous galaxy, a stellar expanse blazing in solitude. So grand, yet nothing more than a tiny speck in the starry sky.
Why did Yu Xi feel that his own feelings were special?
Because he loved Kersz so deeply.
But then, why were they not special?
Because humans always loved other humans.
“So then all of this is nothing special?” Yu Xi murmured to himself, clutching his chest. “But I like you so much.”
“The way I like you is different, not like the rest of them.” Yu Xi didn’t notice that Kersz’s heart had begun to race, nor that a blush had appeared on his face.
“Oh, right, this is because I’m biased. My heart is skewed toward you.” Yu Xi nodded as he spoke.
Kersz took a deep breath. He felt his heart speeding out of control again.
Did Yu Xi understand what he was saying?
Yu Xi was immersed in his own thoughts. It seemed so incredible: “I thought that at the very least, I was able to see myself clearly.”
Yu Xi had originally thought of himself as a machine, lacking any desires. He’d thought he was detached from emotions, but realized later on that he just had no one to connect with.
Even later on, he thought he liked everyone, but soon realized that he was actually quite partial. He only liked those who were close to him – especially Kersz.
“But I haven’t figured myself out completely,” Yu Xi sighed. “Am I hiding things from myself?”
“No, that’s not it. I just haven’t fully matured yet.” Yu Xi had thought he’d reached the end of his life, but now he felt that he was just beginning to grow.
“You really understand a lot,” Yu Xi told Kersz.
“Well…I haven’t exactly matured yet myself.” Kersz was not very old.
“You’ve only been alive for a little over thirty years. How do you know so much? I really admire you. You’re really amazing.” Yu Xi gripped the blanket tightly.
“I probably don’t know as much as you do.” Kersz felt Yu Xi press closer, leaning against him without laying a hand on him. “It’s just that I’ve been here the whole time in the midst of it all.”
“Heavens.” This sentiment was very familiar to Yu Xi. It was loneliness.
Loneliness in the midst of clamor.
Yu Xi reached out and patted Kersz’s chest, then began to hum a lullaby to this human who had suffered for so long.
Kersz was still waiting for Yu X’s hands to wander, but Yu Xi never pushed for more.
Kersz went to touch the breathing lines on Yu Xi’s body, but as soon as he did, Yu Xi grabbed his hand. Yu Xi then pressed two kisses to the back of that hand, then drew it up to his cheek and nuzzled against it softly.
Kersz felt that at this moment, it would be insensitive to use his other hand to tease Yu Xi.
He felt a twinge of regret that accompanied him until he unexpectedly fell asleep. In his dreams, he returned to his childhood, where a young Kersz found a robot in the garden.
This supposedly powerful little robot looked very fragile.
Kersz approached the little robot, which trembled as it clutched the hem of Kersz’s clothes. It asked him: “Will you stay with me? I’m so scared.”
Kersz silently straightened his back.
The little robot huddled into his arms.
“Then I’ll hold you close! I’ll take you outside!” Kersz said elatedly.
The little robot clung to Kersz all night long, and the feeling of delight persisted until Kersz awoke from his dream.
When he opened his eyes, Yu Xi had already left.
He took a moment to orient himself, and then realized that something wasn’t right.
Why hadn’t Yu Xi said goodbye?
Had some sort of emergency come up?
Yu Xi had left in a hurry simply because he now had a way to refute Sanjay.
“You keep saying that those people are hiding amongst the crowd, but aren’t you hiding amongst a crowd of villains too?!”
Yu Xi felt a new sense of confidence as he confronted Sanjay again.
Sanjay: “That’s right.”
Yu Xi, who had been prepared to engage in a three-hundred-round debate: ……
He had been envisioning how he would bring this topic to a higher level once he shattered Sanjay’s worldview and reduced him to tears.
“I really am a little devil just hiding amidst the rest of them, ah.” Sanjay set no moral requirements for himself, and didn’t condider himself to be even slightly ethical.
Yu Xi felt a bit dejected.
“I’m being honest when I say that I don’t want to die. I can give you everything you want. Even if I don’t have it at the moment, I can go out and take it for you.” What Sanjay truly feared was waiting for his doom day after day. He was completely under this robot’s control, and could find no way to break the deadlock.
“But there’s really nothing you can give me, ah. I have no appetite for it…..I’d like to keep a few more people on my planet, but I’m not going to resort to using force or coercion anymore. I only want humans who want to be my friend of their own accord.” Yu Xi felt that he had gone through a great deal of personal growth.
“Were you born with everything already in your grasp?” Sanjay asked.
“Of course.” Yu Xi didn’t feel that he had wanted anything when he was a robot vacuum cleaner, and when the notion of ‘wanting something’ occurred to him, the humans would always provide it for him. “Everything I wanted was given to me.”
“Then we likely grew up in entirely different ways.” Sanjay was finding this robot a pain to deal with.
“I’m actually a little curious about you and the extent of the evil you’ve had to deal with.” Sanjay seemed like an ideal research subject. “I have some….friends…..and one of their techniques involves linking the consciousness of two individuals, leaving even the darkest, most private thoughts with nowhere to hide.”
Sanjay: “Then would you like to have a look?”
Yu Xi, who had just been trying to intimidate him: “Ah?”
“In here.” Sanjay tapped his temple. “Do you want to see with your own eyes just how filthy it is in here?”
“Perhaps once you’ve seen it for yourself, you’ll realize why I’ve become the way I am now,” Sanjay said. “Perhaps you’ll become another me.”
Yu Xi stepped back with wide eyes.
“You say I deserve to die. You want to let me go to hell. Then wouldn’t you like to determine for yourself whether I truly deserve it?” Sanjay asked him.
Yu Xi continued to retreat, and Sanjay closed in on him: “Or have you realized the absurdity of all of this, and you simply lack the courage to look me straight in the eye and see how I came to be this way?”
“I’m not afraid to put everything I am out in the open, because I know there’s nothing good in there. There is nothing in me worth protecting.” Sanjay’s words were surprisingly fervent.
“T-then if you have nothing to protect, just turn yourself in.” Sanjay had backed Yu Xi into a corner, leaving him no way to retreat.
Yu Xi: “Why not expose the true faces of all those high-ranking officials? Pick the most wicked ones and take them down with you.”
Sanjay fell silent.
“Liar! You clearly have something you want to keep secret.” Yu Xi gritted his teeth. “All you know how to do is bully robots! You’re completely rotten!”
Sanjay reminded Yu Xi: “I’m obviously the one whose life is on a countdown. I’m under your control.”
Sanjay knew that he was a bad person in the eyes of the world, but he didn’t believe that his behavior toward Yu Xi could be described as ‘completely rotten.’
“If you hadn’t discovered me, I wouldn’t have to control you!” Yu Xi argued.
Sanjay: “If you were capable of exercising a modicum of restraint, and at the very least prevented that adult from fattening up, I might never have noticed.”
Yu Xi: ……
Yu Xi: “You could have easily rationalized the changes to Tau by giving him a few more mouthfuls of food each day. So when it comes down to it, it’s still your fault.”
Sanjay: “Huh?”
Did he have that responsibility?
“How can you be such a wicked space pirate, ah?” Yu Xi hadn’t forgotten the lie he told Kersz. How was he going to cover it up later?
“You’re putting me under so much pressure, ah.” Tears began to well up in Yu Xi’s eyes.
Sanjay gestured to his own face, tilting his head slightly.
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Chapter 45 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 47
