"Uno!" Jou called triumphantly, placing a red card on top of the pile between us. I blinked at the stack of already played cards, then looked at the three cards in my hand. This was an odd game. Apparently you could only play cards that were the same color. Or if you had what Jou called "wild cards", you could pick a different color. There were even cards that caused your opponent to miss their turn or draw more cards, which was like playing a double edged sword because that could either help or hurt them.

"How am I losing?" I asked, staring at my hand. I had something I could play for my turn, but… "I don't understand. I should be winning such a simple game."

Jou leaned back on his palms and shot me a victorious grin. "Everybody loses sometimes." He shrugged. "It's like dying – it happens to everyone, though we don't want it to." I raised an eyebrow, and he felt the need to continue. His eyes glanced upward, a sign that he was thinking. I've gotten very good at reading body language after being alive for three months and two weeks. Even though I could not feel emotions like they do, I could act and pretend if I studied them long enough. "Just like this game, everything comes to an end. We can't stop it, and though we try, we can't prolong it either."

"Is it over now?" I asked, nodding to the cards in my hand.

He laughed. "Not yet it's not. Soon, though. I got one card left. Let's see what you can do." I looked to my cards again. I had a red, a green, and a blue. There was no way I could win now – especially with this hand. With a sigh, I placed the red card down. Jou's face lit up, and he slammed down a yellow card on top of it.

"I win!" He shouted, shimmying in his spot – doing some kind of childish victory dance.

"Wait! How do you win?" I asked, pointing to the yellow card on top of the stack. "You're disqualified. Yellow does not match red."

"But the numbers match. See?" He pulled up his yellow three, showing me my own red three underneath.

I set my cards down next to the stack.
"If I had known you could match numbers as well as colors, I would've won the game twelve turns ago."

Jou blinked, looked from me to the cards, then back.
"Oh. You didn't know that you could match numbers?"

"No, I was not aware of that. You neglected to tell me that tidbit." I said calmly, folding my arms. "Your win is void."

"Okay, okay. I won't count it as a win, but as a lesson in teaching." He picked up the cards and shoved them all into one stack again. "That's my fault. I've never met someone who's never played Uno before. I didn't think..." He trailed off, and I remained silent, idly picking at the carpet under me. "Wanna play again?"

"I should apologize." I said, looking at Jou. "There are still a lot of things I don't know, even though I've been alive for quite some time now."

"It's no problem." He shrugged. "There's a lot of things to learn. You can't expect to know everything in two months. I just need to get used to it. I've never had a friend who knew so little about common games."

"We are friends?" The word was foreign on my tongue. I wondered what, exactly, being a friend entailed. We did hang out a lot since we met. Was that enough time to be considered a friend? Was there a ritual we had to do to be official friends? Was Grandfather my friend? I frowned slightly. No. Grandfather wasn't my friend. He was my creator. More of a parent than anything, though we shared no blood.

"What are you talking about?" Jou asked, breaking into my thoughts. "Of course we're friends! Why would I spend my spare time hanging out with a guy who wasn't my friend?"

Something deep inside, my common sense, was telling me not to say it, but I did anyway.
"Because I am not a human." I did not want to hurt his feelings - even by accident.

"Oh, god." He simply rolled his eyes, his feelings intact. "So what? You're still living, though, aren't ya? Weren't you the one who told me that?"

"That is true." I nodded in agreement. "Why would you want to be my friend?"

"Because you're a real interesting guy."

"Am I?" This was…unexpected. I was simply made to cure Grandfather's loneliness. What was so interesting about that?

"The only problem I got with you is that you're so very narrow minded." Jou set the cards on the table and watched me. "It's like…you only think of things in a certain way. Night and day. Black and white. Nothing in between. No space for gray."

"That's how I was made. Everything is logic and facts." I paused. "Also…Grandfather was not able to make me with a heart."

"A what now?"

"A heart."

"So...you don't bleed?"

"No, I mean... like feelings." I folded my hands in my lap and elaborated. "I can't get angry, sad, happy, or any other emotion. I can't get lonely or enraged. I can only be…me. Like this. The reason I see everything so 'black and white', as you called it, is because I just don't have the ability to feel and let emotions impact my thoughts and judgement. I only know right from wrong. What should be, and what shouldn't be. Facts. Logic. I run on information."

"Really? That sounds shitty. Sheesh, I shoulda paid more attention in Psychology." Jou muttered to himself. "Is that why you never smile?"

"I don't know how to. Since I lack the knowledge of the feelings connected to it." I admitted. "I tried to once, for Grandfather. But it was so unnatural. Wrong." There was a brief silence, and then I asked, "So, the ending thing…how do you know?"

"Know what?"

"When it's time to end."

Will I end one day?

Jou paled a bit, and he shifted around in his spot. I knew it was something I shouldn't have asked. He was uncomfortable. "Well…sometimes there are signs of it. Like cancer—you know what that is, right?" He asked, and I nodded. "And other times...it just...happens. Without warnin'. Just…you know. Done." His mouth was set in a deep frown, and the next time he spoke, it was so quiet that I could barely hear him. "Like with Yugi."

I blinked. The name was familiar. I had heard it before. While Grandfather was sleeping, he had muttered it.
"I'm familiar with the name... Who is Yugi?"

"Who he was."

"Was?"

"I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you about it, Atem." Jou said, biting his lip.

"I want to know. Please."

He was silent, and then Jou took a deep breath. "Yugi was…my very best friend." He said with some difficulty, his voice thicker than usual. "He was by far the nicest guy you could ever know. He believed in the good of everyone, and trusted so much it was almost a fault. He could never resist a good mystery, adventure, game, or book. We used to hang out everyday after school – Tuesdays were burger day. That was his favorite food."

"What happened to him?"

"He died." Jou said simply, swiping his sleeve across his eyes. "Um…you know: ended. About five years ago. Right during senior year."

"How?"

"He was in a fire." He paused. "See, Yugi always wore this gold, upside-down pyramid puzzle thing around his neck. A gaudy looking thing, but he didn't care. Gramps gave it to him when he was eight, and it took Yugi a few years to solve it. Instead of getting out of the burning building, Yugi ran back to grab the puzzle because it was the most important thing to him – something his grandpa had given him all the way from Egypt. The puzzle survived, but Yugi…well, there was no way anybody could survive burns and trauma like that. He died on the way to the hospital." He took in a deep, shaky breath. "Gramps blames himself because the gift he'd given Yugi was the reason Yugi died. No matter what anyone tells him, or how much time goes by, he still feels responsible."

"That's—"

"Stupid, I know." Jou nodded. "But even though I know it's stupid…I blame myself as well. I should've stopped him. But he was so quick on those short legs...He was gone beore anyone realized he'd ran back."

"It's not Grandfather's fault, and it's not yours, either." I replied. "Maybe I can say this because I can't feel and I haven't been alive long – so I can think in an unbiased way – but it all seems…pointless to me. It's not anyone's fault. It just…happened. Things happen all the time."

"Yeah, I know, Atem." He sighed and looked up at the ceiling from under his bangs. "I know." Jou and I sat there in each other's company, silent. We listening to the steady ticks of the clock, both lost in our own thoughts until it was time for Jou to leave.

It was only a matter of time, of course, until Grandfather would find out that Jou told me about his late grandson.

It was a day like any other, three weeks after my conversation with Jou. I was helping Grandpa in his lab – lately he'd been working hard on something important, though he would not tell me what or why or any other specifics. I didn't ask, either. It was not my place to question. I again figured that if I needed to know, he would tell me.

I was grabbing a disc for him off of the cluttered desk when I saw it.

A photo frame, tipped over on it's front. Like it was something painful that Grandfather could not bear to look at for long periods of time. I picked it up and looked at it, simply curious. The boy in the photo seemed to be the same age I was supposed to look – around seventeen. He had ebony spiked hair tipped with crimson, and golden bangs framed a round, smiling face. At first I was a little surprised. It looked like a photo of me…and yet it wasn't. He was boyish in his looks, where my face was sharper – more defined. I was tan where he was pale. Our hair, though similar, was different as well. His eyes…I couldn't take my own off of them. They were a wide, bright, gemstone amethyst. Something about them held my attention, and I carefully reached out a finger to touch the glass, something deep inside me was moving - but I could not name the sensation. But it was gnawing at me. Was it my data trying to tell me something? Or was it intuition?

"Atem?" Grandfather was suddenly behind me, and I pulled my finger away. "What is it?"

"Is this Yugi?" I asked before I could stop myself. I heard Grandfather's sharp intake of air, and I quickly set the picture back on the desk the way I found it. "My apologies, Grandfather. I just...I didn't..." I readied myself for some kind of reprimand – which, of course, never came. Eventually, I looked around to him. He blinked, obviously surprised that I knew. Then that familiar look of sadness came to his eyes. I shouldn't have asked. It was none of my business.

"Did Jou tell you?" He wondered, but I could tell he already knew the answer. I nodded. Even if he hadn't already guessed, there was no way I would ever lie to Grandfather – in fact; I just didn't lie period. I probably could, but I never did. Even I, with my limited knowledge of the world, knew it was a pointless thing to do. Something that only would cause more trouble than what it was worth.

"Yes. Jou told me."

"That boy." Grandfather chuckled. He did not sound angry. Just understanding; like he knew Jou couldn't keep quiet about it for long.

"I asked him about it. It's not his fault."

"No, I suppose it's my fault. I should've told you from the beginning." He picked up the picture and set it upright, so we could see Yugi again.

"He was your grandson." I said, looking at the picture again. "Who died in a fire."

It wasn't a question, but he still answered. "Yes."

"Because he wanted to...save the puzzle."

Grandfather's eyes tightened.
"Yes," his nod was curt.

"And…his favorite food was burgers." I added, not sure why I was mentioning it. A tear slipped out of Grandfather's eye, and he placed a hand on my shoulder, like he needed to steady himself. I finally looked away from the picture to him, noticing how familiar they really looked. They had the same eyes. Same round face. I was sure Grandfather's hair used to be black, too.

"It was." Grandfather finally said, his voice barely over a whisper.

We ended up spending the rest of that day sitting in the lab, ignoring work and talking about him. About Yugi. I learned about his friends, his dreams, his hobbies, and his fears. How when he was born, he was premature by almost a month. How he almost didn't make it. How he was stronger than he looked. How his mother died during labor and how his father was in a car crash on the way to the hospital. How Grandfather took care of him like he was his own. How he had to go to the emergency room when he had ridden his bike right into a mail truck at six years old. How he always put mustard on his hot dog before the ketchup. How he had caught a fly ball at a baseball game and wouldn't stop talking about it for the next five days. How he could solve expert puzzles in only a few hours or less.

I learned every part about Yugi, no matter how small and irrelevant it seemed. it was like a gushing river. Once Grandfather started talking about him, he couldn't stop. I heard the sadness, the pride, and the love in Grandfather's tone. I suspected that he needed this. He needed to just talk about Yugi to someone. But he'd been alone until I came to be. By the time Grandfather had lapsed into silence after telling me about Yugi's top scores in school, I felt as if I knew the boy who had already died five years before I was born. Felt like I was already, as Jou called it, a friend of his.

And then, after Grandfather had had his long moment of silence, I finally learned why I was created. As he talked me, I watched as he folded and unfolded his hands in his lap, listening to every word with rapt attention. My creation was originally thought up a year after Yugi's death. I was to fill the empty spot that Yugi had left. Grandfather wanted to somehow bring some part of Yugi back into the world. He pulled out all sorts of papers and diagrams for me to look at. The earlier designs were made to look Yugi him and act like him. Then Grandfather explained how it actually turned out differently. He had wanted Yugi back, but he didn't want a replacement. He couldn't stand the thought of replacing his grandson so simply. However, he was so far into his research that he couldn't just stop. He needed to see it through - prove that the past years were meaningful. I started as a copy, but became something real instead. I became another grandson to him.

After that, we moved to the dining room. I made coffee, and Grandfather talked more of the past. Not just about Yugi, but about himself. The roads he had taken, the places he'd seen. As the clock upstairs chimed the early morning hour to us, our long conversation slowed. Eventually, Grandfather headed to bed with a soft "goodnight." He hugged me, and, for his benefit, I returned it as normally as I could. Long after he was asleep, I stayed awake. I thought about what it would be like if I could've personally known Yugi myself. What it would be like if, somehow, I had been alive as a human in his time. Or if he were still alive and we somehow could meet. How different I might be because if it. I dearly wished for any of these possibilities, because I wanted to meet him. For the first time, I got the sense that I was lonely, though perhaps in a different way than Grandfather.

And, like I had thought when I first booted, it was, indeed, a cold feeling.

And the gnawing was still eating me alive.

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