Work Text:
Han Wenqing is not the kind of person one would expect to be planning a birthday party for a robot.
He’s built strongly, hands rough and arms thick and face always set stubbornly with tough features. He does what needs to be done, and he doesn’t waste time or energy on pointless things. Even as a child, he hadn’t spoken much more than necessary, scaring his parents so much that he was taken to a doctor. The doctor’s professional diagnosis, hilariously, was that he was simply soft-spoken, and just had an expression like his silence meant hell. Anybody who knows of him would argue that he is the last person who would plan a birthday party for a robot.
The inarguable fact is, though, that he is indeed doing just that, arms laden with bags and little cone hats. He carries all the party goods in through the back entrance, looking around shiftily even knowing that the aforementioned robot will not and does not have the ability to catch him in the act. His partners in crime meet him at the door carrying bundles of their own. One of them is from the museum’s tech support department, Lin Jingyan, who sometimes smiles at Han Wenqing passing by on his security patrols. The other one is a weird man who visits the museum a lot and takes the tour every time without fail— Zhang Jiale, who seems like a very sentimental man. Without a word, they all begin to set up, working together harmoniously with all the sobriety not befitting their strange situation.
Three grown men, who barely know each other, have all gotten together to spend real money and energy on a celebration for a robot that wheels around the museum and can do a grand total of two separate physical actions.
Of course, the answer lies in the little robot itself. Z-XJ-01-11 is the resident tour guide of City Q’s museum, and can often be seen bustling along doing his rounds and giving his scheduled tours to groups of enthralled visitors. The museum staff had lovingly named him ‘Zhang Xinjie’ after the numbers in his model-code, many of them also calling him “Xinjie of the First Floor” due to his inability to climb the stairs.
Every time anyone heard the familiar whirring of wheels, they would know Xinjie was approaching. The little robot operates on his own schedule, giving tours at specific hours of the day. When he isn’t doing that, he is wandering around the museum like a patrolling staff member, drawing giggles and waves from the crowds. He is usually smart enough to turn corners and dodge obstacles, but still often gets stuck in tricky intersections. Many staff members have had the honor of helping the little robot out of particularly tough spots, and have been all the more endeared to him because of it.
Zhang Xinjie is about three-quarters the height of a regular human, with little rotable wheels on his undercarriage and a body shaped like a catenary dome. Wide black glass eyes are all that exists on his round face, giving him a look of eternal awe. On his back, a small screen subtitles his tours for visitors who are hard of hearing. His light sensors make it almost impossible for him to function in the dark, leading visitors and staff alike to joke that the poor robot had bad eyesight. Occasionally, he will report back at the end of the day wearing glasses he hadn’t been wearing before, possible gifts from charmed visitors.
This little robot is the pride and joy of City Q Museum, and today is his birthday.
-
Zhang Jiale knows it’s absurd to say, but he is truly in love with Z-XJ-01-11.
After he had parted ways with his long term partner, he had been lost for a while, still trying to remember what it was like to be just one person walking alone. He had left his parents in the fervour of youth and romance, run off with somebody who got tired, in the end. In those days, the world was to him a street filled with warmly-lit homes that were not his.
He had moved to City Q to get away from most of his past, but he couldn’t escape everything. He discovered this when he entered the museum, and the memories of his time with Sun Zheping caught up to him so fast they seized in his throat. He powered through most of his visit, even managing to take in what the little robot docent was explaining to them. He had all the heavens to thank that when he finally did break down, he was out of the view of most of the public.
The next thing he registered through the haze of salty tears was a mechanical sort of humming in the distance. He looked up to see the robot from the tour approaching, weaving smartly through a couple of obstacles, apparently heading his way.
Z-XJ-01-11 had come to a decisive stop next to the crying Zhang Jiale, who watched as those glassy eyes scanned his frame. After a moment, the robot turned to face him, and began to speak.
(Speaking is a generous term for what he did, seeing as he was simply playing recorded sounds through a speaker, but the wide-eyed charm written on his face always made him look all the more sincere.)
“Knock Knock.”
Zhang Jiale could only look at him in confusion. Was this robot malfunctioning?
“Knock Knock,” the robot repeated, sounding insistent even though it was exactly the same audio that had played before.
Zhang Jiale finally decided to bite, “Who’s there?”
“Art.”
Zhang Jiale stared at the little guy, wondering what on earth was going on. His tears hadn’t even begun to dry up on his face yet! Still, he almost felt like the robot was looking at him expectantly, and felt morally obliged to continue playing along.
“Art who?”
“R2D2.”
A snort had broken out of him before he even registered it, and his laughter broke through like a dam. Alongside him, Z-XJ-01-11 was laughing as well, and their glee rang through the air together, Zhang Jiale’s crazed laughter punctuated by robotic little “Ha ha”s.
Later he had found out that this was Zhang Xinjie’s special programme to help out crying children at the museum, of which there were many. He had sensed someone in distress and had wheeled over to help, and subsequently stolen Zhang Jiale’s tears and his heart.
He had come back regularly after that, using expanding his horizons as an excuse to talk to his little robot boyfriend and hear his jokes. Of course he had immediately agreed when asked whether or not he wanted to help out for Xinjie’s birthday.
-
Lin Jingyan is amazed at how empty the museum is, when it would usually have been packed at this time.
Using his and Han Wenqing’s privileges as long-term staff members and upper management’s general affection towards Z-XJ-01-11, he had managed to push back the opening hour of the museum today. After knowing Zhang Xinjie for so long, he knows how the little robot seems to get stressed out when he is stuck in a large crowd, and even knowing that that cannot possibly be true, robots don’t have feelings, he still decided to accommodate this imaginary need.
After they finish setting everything up and welcoming all the other employees, they wait for Xinjie to make his regularly scheduled rounds through the museum foyer. Part of the reason they had had to push back opening hours was also to accommodate their robot boyfriend’s schedule.
(The party planning group chat had been named “ZXJ’s boyfriends” by an unrelenting Zhang Jiale, and they had all given in to it eventually. Lin Jingyan supposes it’s not exactly wrong. As part of the IT department and self-appointed Xinjie caretaker, he spends a significant amount of time fussing over the little robot. He even spends Xinjie’s off-hours with him, when the museum has closed to the public and he no longer has any visitors to take care of. On days when he stays overnight at the museum, he sleeps in the room where Xinjie charges. He supposes he is somewhat qualified to claim boyfriend-cy.)
The familiar humming starts sounding down the corridor, and they all jump into position. Zhang Jiale is ready with his party poppers, and Han Wenqing is standing handsomely over their little pile of gifts. Everyone else is ready and smiling, poised to shout happy greetings to their little friend. Lin Jingyan nods at his two partners before stepping out to welcome Z-XJ-01-11 first.
The moment he steps into the corridor, a flash of yellow blasts into his vision, and he is almost knocked over by his robot boyfriend speeding into him. If he were any more delusional, he would say that Zhang Xinjie always seemed a little more excited to see him than others. He gives the robot a tight hug and wheels him carefully into the lobby.
“SURPRISE!”
Streamers come flying down over the two of them, while several other party-goers blow kazoos in their direction. Zhang Xinjie’s programming is immediately triggered by the group’s shout, and he begins to blast “Happy Birthday”. ‘Surprise’ is one of the words they had coded into Xinjie’s system, one that set off his Birthday protocol.
He begins whirring in confusion as he looks for the birthday person and finds no one. Lin Jingyan smiles at Han Wenqing, who puts two firm hands on Xinjie and begins to wheel him in a specific direction. Of course, they don’t want to stress him out with their party. They’ve already planned it all so that they didn’t break his little robot brain.
A chair had already been set up with a picture of Xinjie on it, and he happily accepts it as the recipient of the surprise. In a small crowd of people all singing with love for him, playing a little birthday song for himself for once instead of for strangers, Lin Jingyan feels like Zhang Xinjie looks particularly happy.
-
Han Wenqing observes the celebration from a small distance and sighs in contentment. Something about colleagues and friends gathering just to play around like this seems so human, yet it was a little robot who brought them together.
He watches Xinjie now, waving his little arms up and down. These actions are usually for gesturing while he gives tours, now repurposed for his own robotic form of dancing. It does seem remarkably human to Han Wenqing, how this little robot uses the few small actions that he knows to express something so big. To express something like happiness, or order, or love, or chaos, to live.
It really does seem like Zhang Xinjie is having a spectacular birthday.