the voice echoed softly, almost accusing."But why do I still feel like two people inside the same body?"
The silence that followed was thick, stretched between timelines. Zhang Huan-An—no, Yu Yong-An—stood before the mirror, unsure who exactly was speaking. Himself? A remnant? Or the ghost of a choice never made?
"I remember your memories," he whispered, fingertips brushing against the cold glass."But they don't belong to me. Not really."
From within, a reply surfaced—not spoken aloud, but felt like an echo threading through his veins.
"Then whose life did you live during those 281 days?"
He didn't answer.
His reflection stared back at him—not quite right. The posture was his, the scars too. But the eyes? The eyes held a weight he had never known until that dreamlike season where time broke apart and remade itself.
"Do you remember the rooftop? The rain?"the voice inside pressed."That was my fear. My ending. And now it's become yours."
He turned away. The room behind him was dim, dust suspended in unmoving air. Nothing had shifted since he woke—yet everything had changed.
"They said integration would bring peace," he muttered."But this… this feels like exile. I can't go back. I can't move forward."
"Then choose."
The whisper again. No longer from within—but from just behind. He didn't turn. He knew nothing would be there. And yet—
"Choose who you want to remain."
He clenched his fists. The names—Zhang Huan-An, Yu Yong-An—lay heavy on his chest like layered truths. Too real to discard. Too overlapping to claim.
"What if I don't want to be either?"he asked the air, voice hoarse.
"Then become what only you can be—""The memory that survives the collapse."
The mirror cracked.
Not from pressure, not from sound.
From time.
And as the fracture split his reflection in two, he realized:
They had never truly been separate.And now, they could never truly merge.They would simply continue—
Layered.
Fragmented.
Echoing.
"Reflections That Do Not Return"
When the mirror shattered, time fractured with it.
The cracks radiated outward like webbing, each fissure revealing a version of himself—some younger, others older, some cold and unfeeling, others brimming with unshed tears.
"Are these… all me?"
His voice wavered in the still air, unsure whether he was questioning the mirror—or the fractured soul it reflected.
A shard broke loose, falling to the floor with a soft chime. Yet the reflection it cast wasn't of the room he stood in—it was of time:Friday's dusk. Tuesday's echo. The moment the cross appeared. The final turn of her silhouette.
"You're not choosing an identity,"said a voice—feminine, calm, not quite Yang An-Ting, not quite Li An-Qing, but holding the gentleness of both."You're choosing which version of yourself will survive."
He gazed down at the scattered fragments.Each one led to a future that could never return to the beginning.
"And if I choose nothing?" he asked, barely audible.
"Then you'll remain trapped here—in this fracture—until the next cycle calls you back."
Silence again.
And then, softly, he said:
"I don't want to wake again—Not if waking means forgetting her."
The mirror flickered.
A memory surfaced, replaying on its own:"You won't remember what I said. But you'll remember that it turned dark… and I didn't leave."
It was her voice—Li An-Qing.
It was the eternity hidden within Friday.
No more ticking clocks.No more voices.Only the sound of breath—and something deeper, like the echo of his own heartbeat splintering through time.
A crack ran across the floor, slow but certain, as if time itself was fracturing.One wrong step—and he would fall into a past that no longer wanted him.
He knelt, picking up the fallen shard.In its surface, memory stirred—not his, but sharp enough to cut.
"He said he'd come back… He promised me."
It was Yang An-Ting's voice—young, certain, heartbreakingly full of hope.
Another fragment reflected Li An-Qing, standing at the edge of an abandoned railway.A timestamp flickered in her eyes:2025.2.19 // 28:01
She whispered,
"Memory isn't for forgetting. It's for choosing."
Something inside him pulled—gently at first, then with force.A sorrowful gravity.
The kind that lived in her voice,in her silence,in every name lost to time.
"Then how do I choose?" he asked—not to the mirror, but to everything.
"Choice," the voice answered from beyond the glass,"isn't an answer. It's a cost."
He opened his eyes.The fracture was pushing him toward a precipice—an end written long ago but never read aloud.
"You've remembered too much," the voice murmured,"and forgotten more than you know.So now, only one question remains—Who will you stay for?"
"You've always remembered,"Yang An-Ting's voice was gentle, but unwavering."You just didn't want to admit it."
"And you've never let go,"Li An-Qing's voice followed, soft and clear, like light after rain."Because deep down, you knew—it wasn't yours to end."
He stood between the mirror and the rift,Behind him, the remnants of the past.Before him, an exit with no name.
"If I can't be him, and I can't remain only myself… then what's left?"
"Memory,"they said together.
Not a name.Not an identity.But something heavier—something that could pierce through time itself.
If names could be forgotten, then let them fade.If identities could collapse, then stop defining them.
"You don't need a name,"Yang An-Ting whispered."You've already remembered us.""You just need to keep walking,"Li An-Qing followed,"Not for anyone. Not even for yourself."
The rift began to close—not as an end, but as a quiet reconfiguration.The shattered timelines wove into each other, forming a new path—one that required no right or wrong, no labels, no return.
It was the third route.
Not back.Not in circles.But—
Toward a future unnamed.