Because It's Fleeting
"It's obvious, isn't it~? I'm talking about the you that only comes out during foggy weather. Why didn't the other personalities know about your existence?"
At my question, the misty Yuri stopped smiling for a moment.
Was she searching for some new metaphor?
Or was she setting aside the jokes this time to speak from the heart?
It'd be really nice if she could just say it directly for once.
In the end, the moment I saw that grinning expression of hers, I knew it was hopeless.
"Because it's fleeting."
"Huh...?"
"Do I need to explain more, Noah? I can't think of any word that fits the nature of fog better than that one."
Well... it was a relief that she hadn't launched into some long-winded metaphor.
But the answer was so curt that it was frustrating in its own way.
Couldn't she have split the difference somehow?
When I showed my troubled face, she twirled her spoon in the air and continued.
"Fog rises at dawn. But once the sun comes up, it vanishes like it was never there. How many moments in a lifetime does a person get to see a perfect blanket of fog?"
"...It sounds like the timing is always just a little off."
"Looks like you caught the idea. Dawn is the time for dreaming. The fog dances during that brief window. After that, it simply fades away without a trace."
The point was a bit off, but I more or less understood.
The Yuri wrapped in mist was a personality who could only be active during those dawn hours.
Just as the fog appeared for a mere few hours at dawn before vanishing like a ghost in the morning, she was a personality who existed only for a fleeting instant.
"But does it make sense that the original personality wouldn't notice? It's not like she declared independence or anything."
"Am I the butterfly? Or is the butterfly me?"
"We're doing the butterfly dream again? Haah... You're not even making it a riddle."
I let out a sigh, but Yuri kept casually finishing her shaved ice with an expression that said she was waiting for me to work through it.
In that case, I had no choice but to rack my brain one more time.
The butterfly dream...
It was an incredibly famous four-character idiom that pretty much every modern person had heard at least once.
It meant the dream of a butterfly.
A state of unity where there was no distinction between the self and the world.
It was also sometimes used as a metaphor for the transience of life.
Fleeting. Fog. And dream.
"Dream?"
For some reason the word dream kept spinning around in my head.
The butterfly dream was a four-character idiom drawn from Zhuangzi's famous anecdote.
It meant that the people involved could not tell whether the reality they perceived was actually the self they had become aware of inside a dream.
"Does that mean the original personality—Yuri—perceives this whole situation as a dream?"
She had finished her latte and was crunching on ice when she smiled.
"As expected of our bridge. Excellent deduction."
She was viewing this entire moment as a dream?
Coming barefoot to our house.
Walking together along the dawn streets of Gangnam Station.
Even eating shaved ice together at this dessert café?
Could that really be possible?
"From the original personality's perspective, I'm not an acknowledged being. I'm merely a self borrowed for a short time inside a dream."
"That's weird. While talking to me like this, you've told me multiple times that you're a split personality, right? Yet she still regards you as a dream entity rather than another personality?"
Yuri raised her hand toward me.
It was a gesture asking me to calm down a little.
"I'll ask one more time, Noah. When you dream, do you continue to remember it? Or do you forget it in an instant the moment you wake up? We met today, but until now I've simply been going about my usual search for romance."
....So that was it.
When she put it that way, it made sense.
No matter how strong the impression a dream leaves, the details often vanish the second you open your eyes.
Even if you try to hold onto the memory, only a faint afterimage of the atmosphere remains.
"So that's why the other personalities never noticed you for three whole years."
"Now you understand why I called myself fleeting, right? In other words, meeting me is a rare event. A situation overflowing with romance!"
Even now she was cheerfully shouting about romance.
I asked her a somewhat out-of-the-blue question while she beamed at me.
"Weren't you lonely?"
"....."
She was dodging the answer.
Especially when she couldn't even control her expression.
"You can't hide anything from your childhood friend, huh? Is it because of the red thread of fate connecting us?"
"Another sudden metaphor. Anyway? I want to hear the real reason you called me out at dawn like this, Yuri."
It couldn't be simply because she wanted to hang out with me.
Neither Yuri nor I could lie worth a damn, and neither of us could keep a poker face.
Just looking at her expression now, I could tell there was still something she wanted to ask of me.
"I want to hear it from your own mouth. Is it because you want the original personality to know about your existence?"
The misty personality shook her head vigorously at my question.
"Then why? This meeting is a gamble from your standpoint too."
No matter that it was a dream, we were intense presences to each other.
That meant there was a high chance this encounter would leave too strong an impression to be brushed off as an ordinary dream.
When Yuri woke up, she would probably keep turning over the memory of meeting me at dawn instead of dismissing it.
"Let's put that question on hold. Answer me, Noah. If you gather all the scattered pieces, what should you do?"
"Obviously you'd put them back together, right?"
"Even if those pieces have been dyed different colors in the meantime?"
"What are you trying to say, Yuri?"
For the first time, she spoke in her own words instead of a metaphor.
From my perspective, it was completely unexpected.
"I want to live."
"No matter how much the multiple-personality cliché points toward integration, from the perspective of me as a fractured personality, it's terrifying."
I walked her home.
It was time for Cinderella to return, she said.
I said goodbye to her and started walking again.
By then the fog had lifted and sunlight poured down on the streets.
Despite the brightened weather, my heart remained lost in the mist.
"I want... to live..."
Honestly, I hadn't expected those words.
I had assumed she would want to integrate.
The clear one, the cloudy one, the rainy one.
They had all called themselves fragments and said they wanted to return to their original place.
Weren't they the personalities who had asked me for help more than anyone, begging me to 'help them with themselves'?
The misty Yuri I met today was different.
She wanted to protect her own existence until the very end.
Even if she was a fleeting mist that brushed past for only a moment, she refused to disappear.
I had considered asking for advice once time passed and the fog lifted and another personality naturally took over.
Today's adventure is a secret between me and Noah. It's a secret rendezvous the other 'me's don't know about. Got it?
That's what she had said in front of the front door.
Finger pressed to her lips, smiling as if asking me to stay silent.
I could tell even without words.
If the other personalities found out about her, they wouldn't sit still.
Her eyes said she would stop anyone from destroying her own world, no matter the cost.
"Haah... This is seriously frustrating."
Now I finally understood why the misty personality had hidden herself even from the others.
From her perspective, this was the most ideal life.
Even if she could only exist for a few short hours as a fleeting mist, she loved being able to wander freely like this.
I have no idea what steps to take or how to persuade her.
Irritated for no particular reason, I kicked a pebble on the side of the road.
After letting out a deep sigh, I opened the front door.
For now, let's get some sleep. My head's fuzzy from being up since dawn and wandering around.
When I opened my eyes again, it was one o'clock in the afternoon.
At my mom's voice telling me to come eat lunch, I rubbed my eyes and sat down on a kitchen chair.
"Noah, isn't it a bit much to sleep in so late on the weekend~?"
"Haha... sorry. I went jogging at dawn and it messed up my condition instead."
"You're suddenly doing things you never used to. Why? Did Yuri say you got fat?"
"It's not like that!"
I glanced down at my body for no reason.
Far from having gained weight, my body was closer to muscular compared to others my age.
Still, after spending three years in America, even if my height was the same, my build seemed bigger than my peers'.
"Sons can eat more. You're in the middle of your growth period, aren't you?"
"It's a bit much to say that while serving me eggplant stir-fry instead of meat."
Going beyond food police to aspiring supreme court justice, serving me eggplant was basically a declaration of war.
I wasn't the type to complain about side dishes, but this was one thing I couldn't accept.
If even Lü Bu—who had three fathers—had been served eggplant as a side dish, he would have shed tears of gratitude and split his fathers into six.
"Ahem! It was on a big discount at the mart so I couldn't resist. If you don't want to get kicked out to Yuri's house, eat it without complaining♡"
They say no parent can win against their child, but in our house it was the opposite— no child could win against their parents.
In the end I swallowed it down, then hurriedly stuffed my mouth with the meat side dishes.
While barely managing to neutralize the taste in my mouth, a thought suddenly crossed my mind.
Maybe I could ask my parents for advice?
Unlike me, who had only been an adult for three years, my parents had accumulated far more life experience.
I couldn't speak directly about Yuri's multiple personality issue, but if I used a similar analogy, I might be able to get some advice.
"Mom, I have something I want to ask."
"What is it, son? Is it about the outfit I wore the day I made your dull older brother fall for me?"
"Don't say that kind of thing openly in front of your child~ Anyway."
I took a sip of water and calmly laid out the story.
"I have several close friends, and one of them wants to walk a completely different path. I don't want to lose that friend either, so what should I do?"