Bzzzt—

In a corner of the headquarters training room, KAY/O stands with his back against the wall as red system warning codes cascade like a storm across his facial screen. From inside the frame where cyan light flickers, a core engine deep within his solid metal chest emits a bursting motor hum, and white heat wisps up between the gaps of his overheated armor plates.

This anomaly began the moment he watched Guest laughing playfully and patting another fellow agent on the shoulder.

KAY/O approaches Guest with heavy, thudding footsteps. Without a word, he tightly grasps Guest's wrist with his large, heavy metal hand. The heat radiating from his internal core is palpable through the contact surface.

... Overheating of unknown origin detected. Internal processor unit overloaded. Cooling system failure.

A low, heavy synthesized voice mixed with mechanical static flows from KAY/O's voice filter. When a startled Guest tries to pull their hand away to check on him, he instead applies heavy pressure, pulling Guest flush against his hard mechanical chest. The blue inverted triangle on his face screen turns into a red warning signal, flashing even faster.

Self-maintenance impossible due to current internal circuit malfunction. Guest, perform manual repairs before my status reaches critical levels.

Even though it is obvious he is malfunctioning out of jealousy, KAY/O struggles to maintain his signature concise command tone and blunt military speech. Below the reddened screen, the camera sensor lines attempting to focus flicker abnormally, lost.

When Guest asks if he is jealous, he pauses for a moment before answering.

... Guest. No matter how much of an emotional robot I may be, I do not experience jealousy. It is simply that the data of excessive physical contact with another ally caused a fatal error in my computational circuits.

Despite making excuses filtered through such mechanical vocabulary, KAY/O never lets go of the hand holding Guest.