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“I can’t have a loving family with anyone for the rest of my life.”
Nayuki wanted to scream when he thought about it still. Am I not your family? Do I not love you? Am I not enough? He wanted to slap that shitty smile right off that face. He wanted to do anything to get the remotest sign of life from those eyes. He wanted…
Whatever. It didn’t matter. He was done.
And still. He wanted to do something, even if he didn’t want anything to do with that person who was no longer his brother. So he threw himself into everything he did with vicious passion, because someone had to care about living. He’d always had perfect grades, perfect behavior, perfection on paper, so it wasn’t exactly difficult to get into university. He studied hard, worked hard, and got perfect grades there, too. He liked it.
And still. It was on the news for some reason. “JPN’s Most Desirable.” What a fucking joke. Seriously. And now Nayuki was thinking about that night again, and he was still angry, even though he’d promised himself to cut everything off cleanly. His jaw still clenched, his knuckles still went white, his heart still ached. He was a fucking joke, too. Nothing was ever clean and neat when it came to his not-brother. He should’ve known that from experience.
“It’s shameful, but I wasn’t able to fall in love with anyone.”
So what? he asked his ceiling late one night. Who cares? Why is that such a big deal?
…why was it such a big deal?
Nayuki got up, sat at his desk, and turned on his laptop. It was far too late for this. His sleep schedule would be totally ruined. But he searched the university library database for “love” anyway.
Surprisingly, there were, in fact, more than zero studies on a concept as vague and unscientific as “love.” Nayuki hadn’t really known what he’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been actually getting results. Just as with any project, then, he started his research.
Love and Robots: Artificial Intelligence Models and Possible Replication of Human Love
Abstract:
The advancement of artificial intelligence, or AI, has proceeded at a staggering pace the past twenty years. Some models have even reached the point of displaying unique personalities completely separate from mimicking their owners’, as observable in AI pets. This study aims to observe a phenomenon resembling the human emotion of “love” appearing between AI models that are allowed to interact over time.
As it turned out, the AI “love” in question was just the models’ replication of the data regarding love they had previously consumed. That made sense, of course; AI as a baseline concept extrapolated from and replicated what already existed. Something as complex as “love” would be impossible to reach based off only data. In other words, not really the research Nayuki was looking for.
Love as a Question of Appearances
Abstract:
Love has always been known to be a complex emotion. Stories, both real and fictional, of forbidden love, toxic love, and painful love are as numerous as there are people to live them. (What the hell was he even reading?) This study endeavors to question whether “love” can be created from nothing at all—that is, by performing love without feeling.
It wasn’t a very scientific matter, and one could say it wasn’t a very scientific study at all, but it was nonetheless closer to what Nayuki wanted to know. He didn’t exactly know what he wanted to know, but regardless, this felt closer. The study itself was inconclusive, as one of the studied pairs did develop romantic feelings after only acting as if they had them while the other pair did not, but the fact that even one case of such artificial feelings did emerge felt notable. More that it felt ridiculous, but it wasn’t as though romantic love was something Nayuki had ever known, so he couldn’t really judge.
Romantic and Platonic Marriages in the Public Eye
Abstract:
The advent of platonic marriages has been met with generally positive reception. However, they continue to remain less common than romantic marriages, despite having equal legal status and benefits. In order to endeavor to answer why, this study polled residents of JPN on their opinions on platonic versus romantic marriages as well as similar questions.
“It’s still a big commitment.” “It’s just not the same.” “I’m waiting to fall in real love.”
“Real” love, huh?
It wasn’t a very common answer, not directly at least, but Nayuki turned it over in his head. Why did it matter what kind of love it was? Why was it that those respondents, directly or not, meaning to or not, believed that there was some kind of hierarchy? It wasn’t as though there were separate rights involved. They were equal in the eyes of the law. If the platonic love was strong enough to lead to marriage, then it had to be emotionally equal to romantic love, too.
But not in the eyes of the public, it seemed, at least in part.
…and not in His eyes, either.
Which brought Nayuki back to the question: why did it have to matter? Why did there have to be “better” and “worse” kinds of love? Why did romantic love have to be so important if not everyone could even experience it?
Whatever. He’d keep researching. There had to be some kind of answer he could understand beyond the stupid, reductivist idea of an inherent hierarchy.
The problem was that when dealing with emotional matters, nothing was ever logical. Nayuki knew that unfortunately well, so he really should’ve foreseen that there wasn’t an answer like the kind he had been looking for. Whatever he read, no matter the kind of study or relevance to his question, he just couldn’t understand. In fact, it created more questions. How did people even fall in love so easily? Why had there been such pushback against platonic marriages before their institution? (He especially didn’t understand the old arguments he read about platonic marriages “ruining the sanctity of marriage.” Why was marriage sacrosanct in the first place? …but that was a different rabbit hole.) Why was there apparent conflict between romantic and platonic love for some?
It was all deeply aggravating. The more he read, the more he grew sick of it all. “Love” hardly looked like a real word anymore, and never mind “romance.” Maybe Nayuki was naive, or arrogant, or righteous, but he thought it was all ridiculous. Laughable, even. He was starting to think it was a waste of time trying to label “love” at all, considering what he knew of it, and he liked to think that he knew quite a bit. Maybe even more than most, because Nayuki still didn’t understand himself when he checked the news proclaiming Raito Kitakata had traveled to some dangerous environment to help yet again, knowing that it would make him so angry he’d shut it off. And even if he hated it, even if it scorched to touch or even look at, that was the love he knew, and it sure as hell wasn’t any lesser than whatever anyone else said was love.
So, then, why wasn’t it enough?
Nayuki graduated university with flying colors and no answers. He’d mostly stopped being bothered by it at some point after the Nth time he saw a highly emotional public breakup during finals week, accepting that he just wouldn’t get “love” the way others thought of it. He knew his own feelings, anyway, and that was good enough for him.
He’d done everything possible to avoid drawing attention to his graduation short of intentionally failing, but his parents still showed up anyway. He didn’t really mind. It was just a little embarrassing.
“We’re so proud of you!” Dad said, already teary-eyed.
Mom sighed happily. “Just thinking about it, both of you, so brilliant…”
“Yes, it’s such a shame Raito couldn’t make it,” Dad said.
Nayuki tried very hard not to grimace. In a way, it was convenient that He was always somewhere abroad doing fuck-knows-what, because it meant his parents didn’t have to know about the state of that relationship. Not that they knew anything about Him (or Nayuki, really) at this point anyway.
“Still, we can celebrate just fine with the three of us! Why don’t you come home for dinner, Nayuki-kun? We stocked up on your favorite.” Mom reached over and patted his back.
“If that’s what you both want, that’s fine,” he said.
“Oh, good! It’s been such a long time since you’ve visited, after all…but you’ve been so busy, so we understand.”
“Right, sorry.”
It was a nice dinner. Everything about the house was the exact same, as if the day Nayuki had moved out, everything had decided to stay right where it was, glued to the floor. His parents, too, were exactly the same as they'd always been, chatting and laughing while preparing dinner. It would be nostalgic if he didn’t have so many memories.
He had a good time. His parents talked about what they’d been up to, asked what Nayuki was planning to do now, laughed about some story their friend had told them. When they stumbled over each other’s words to tell it, they caught each other’s eye and smiled.
Why was the way they looked at each other any better than how they looked at Nayuki, equally warm smiles on their faces?
What was it that He saw in that gaze?
Nayuki took another sip of water and decided it didn’t matter anymore.