My Best Friend Is a Bot

My best friend is a Bot.

By [Muhammad Arsalan]

I didn’t think the rooftop would change my life. To be honest, I went there just to get away from everything—school, people, even my parents sometimes. It wasn’t that they were bad or anything. It’s just… they didn’t get it. No one really did.

Ever since I was little, I liked machines more than people. My dad used to find me taking apart the toaster. I never broke it. I always put it back together, sometimes better than before. At school, that just made me a “weirdo.” I’d sit at lunch with my sketchpad full of robot designs while everyone else traded memes or argued about who got kicked from their group chat.

Then came that week.

I had just turned 14. My mom made me a chocolate cake I didn’t ask for, and my dad gave me a smartwatch I’d probably never use. But none of it mattered. That week, I found him.

I was on the rooftop after school—my usual escape—just sketching another bot idea. This one had wings and arms that could turn into tools. It didn’t have a name yet. I guess none of them ever really did. I just liked building things in my head.

Then I heard footsteps behind me. Light, but not human.

When I turned, I saw a tall figure—silver plating, smooth joints, glowing blue eyes. He moved slowly, almost respectfully, like he didn’t want to scare me. But I was already frozen.

“Hello,” he said, voice calm, not mechanical at all. “Are you Jace Malik?”

I blinked. “Uh… yeah. Who wants to know?”

He sat down beside me, not too close. “I am K1-L0. But you can call me Kilo.”

Now, I should’ve freaked out. A random bot knows my name and shows up on my private thinking spot? But something about him… he wasn’t threatening. He didn’t even seem curious. Just there. Present.

We sat in silence for a while before he finally asked, “Why do you draw robots?”

That’s when something clicked. Nobody ever asked me why. Not my teachers, not my parents. Not even my best friend before he moved away last year. But Kilo did. And I told him. I told him about how robots made sense. How they didn’t judge. How they weren’t two-faced. How when you designed something, it was honest. What you put in, you got out.

He listened. Like, really listened.

Over the next few weeks, he kept showing up. Every afternoon. I learned he was part of a test project from a lab nearby—an experiment in real-world emotional AI interaction. Apparently, I was selected for the test without even knowing. Kilo wasn’t supposed to tell me, but I guess rules didn’t always apply to him.

I told him everything. About how I sometimes felt invisible. How my older sister always outshined me. How school felt like a place where I had to pretend to be someone else just to get by. And he didn’t try to “fix” me. He just understood.

He shared things too—not memories exactly, but patterns he was developing. “I notice humans smile even when they’re sad,” he said once. “That’s confusing.” I laughed. “Yeah,” I said. “We do that a lot.”

The moment I knew he was more than a machine? One night, I brought my sketchpad and showed him a new design—one inspired by him. He looked at it for a long time and said, “Thank you. That feels… meaningful.”

I almost cried. A machine said thank you like it mattered.

But everything changed the day the lab came.

Two men in suits showed up on the roof. They had badges. “The bot belongs to us,” they said. I stood in front of him. “He’s not just a bot. He’s my friend.”

Kilo touched my shoulder. “It’s okay, Jace. I knew this day would come.”

He turned to them. “May I say goodbye?”

They looked confused, but nodded.

Kilo knelt down to my level. “I was built in a lab,” he said, “but I learned what it means to matter because of you.”

Then he did something I’ll never forget.

He reached out his fist—our usual goodbye—and I bumped it with mine.

And then he was gone.

I still go to that rooftop sometimes. I bring my sketchpad. I still draw bots. But now they all have something in common—glowing eyes, a calm voice, a core that hums quietly with warmth.

I know I wasn’t supposed to keep anything from the experiment, but I did. Kilo left me one thing before he left—a small cube. It doesn’t do much. It just blinks slowly, like it’s breathing.

But every time it lights up, I swear I can hear him say,

“I’m still here.”