人鋼
Jinkou [Human Steel]

The feeling of another day down is like a balloon deflated, popping with a soft hiss. And when the sun comes up again it's like that balloon of hope swells again, that we'll do it today for sure. That today is the day. And then the sun goes down and comes up and goes down again.

Sometimes I want to turn to him and say that it's no use. But how could I do that to him? He knows it too, but he goes on, and he says it's for my sake, but sometimes I wonder.

What is it like to walk this earth and see the sun shine down on you but never feel it? What is it like to have food set before you, its fragrance wafting up into your nostrils, and not being able to take a bite? Or maybe there is no scent at all, just the pretty display of colors upon a table as you sit there pretending to be human.

Sometimes I wish I had died in his place. If I had died, wouldn't that have been enough? My life for his, the principle of equivalent exchange, satisfied in full.

They taught us, all the ancient philosophers, the great alchemists of the past, that human life was different. That there was no such thing as equivalence of a soul, because the price was too high to pay. And yet the research they did, the prices they paid for their own success, wasn't that equivalent?

Al tells me that he doesn't mind, and that he is lucky to have a brother like me. Yet I am always waiting for the day when the sun rises and doesn't set because he will tell me that he was lying after all, that everything that has happened up till now has been my fault and that he hates me for what I have become. And when he does that, I will stand with my hands at my sides and my eyes on his eyes that he no longer has. And I will say yes, you are right.

Because it is the principle of equivalent exchange. It is what my existence has come down to, that I have sold my soul for a bargain of man-wrought metal and machine-wrought parts, and Al, the one who has lost everything but has kept his soul, is more human than I.

The word I used for this title, "jinkou," is a compound that I put together made up of the kanji for "person" and "steel". Separately, they are:
人: hito [person]
鋼: hagane [steel...also the first kanji in "Hagane no Renkinjutsushi", or "Fullmetal Alchemist"]

The title's a bit of a pun, too, because the word "jinkou" can be written using different kanji: 人工
工: kou- [construction]

So 人工="manmade".