Chapter 5: He Learned to Leave Traces Earlier Than I Did

That night, I didn’t turn off the light.

I sat at my desk with the notebook spread open, as if waiting for something. The room was unnaturally quiet—so quiet that even the sound of cars outside seemed to have been swallowed by the night.

2:03 a.m.

I wasn’t sleepy, yet a strangely certain feeling settled over me—
if I closed the notebook now, I would lose him again.

I picked up the pen and wrote a single sentence on the blank space of the last page:

“Who are you?”

The moment the words landed, I realized how foolish the question was.

Because I already knew the answer.

I put the pen down, waited a few seconds, then flipped the notebook open again.

The line was still there.
Unchanged.

I stared at it for a long time, even feeling a trace of absurd disappointment—
maybe I really was just too tired.

Just as I was about to close the notebook,
it trembled lightly.

Not an illusion.

Right in front of my eyes, a new line appeared on the page where there had been nothing before.

It didn’t emerge gradually.
It was as if it had been directly inserted.

“I am the part of you that didn’t hesitate.”

My throat tightened.

My palms began to sweat, yet I pressed my hand firmly against the page, as if letting go would make it vanish.

I wrote:

“What are you doing?”

A few seconds later, the reply appeared:

“I’m making sure that at least one of us makes it to the end.”

The phrase to the end made me deeply uncomfortable.

Those four words seemed to assume—
that I would fail.

I began writing quickly, as if trying to seize back some initiative.

“What is ‘the end’?”

This time, there was a long pause.

So long that I began to wonder whether it was already over.

Then the words appeared:

“You’re not ready to know yet.”

I almost immediately wrote another line:

“You made choices for me, didn’t you?”

The response came unnaturally fast:

“Yes.”

No explanation.
No justification.

That blunt admission was the first thing that truly made me angry.

“You don’t have that right.”

The pen stopped for a long time.

So long that I thought there would be no reply this time.

But when the words appeared again, the pressure was visibly heavier, as if they had been pressed into the paper:

“If you had seen the outcomes I’ve seen, you would have done the same.”

I leaned back in my chair, realizing for the first time with absolute clarity—
this he was not my shadow.

He was a version of me who had gone further.
A me who had already seen the ending—and was willing to bear its consequences.

I lowered my head and wrote:

“Zhou Wan knows you.”

This time, there was no immediate response.

Nearly a full minute passed before the words slowly appeared:

“She knew me earlier.”

My breath caught.

“So she mixes us up because you keep appearing.”

“Not mixing up.”

“Choosing.”

Those two words hit like cold water.

I suddenly understood why her gaze in the clinic had been so complicated.

She wasn’t confused.
She was just unsure whether I was the version that could survive.

I turned to the next page and wrote the question I least wanted to ask, yet couldn’t avoid:

“Will I disappear?”

This time, there was no direct answer.

Instead, he wrote:

“You’ve already disappeared many times.”

I stared at the line, my fingertips numb.

“Then what about the me now?”

The reply finally came, the handwriting unnaturally steady:

“The you now is the final attempt.”

The light in the room flickered.

Not a blackout—just unstable voltage.

But in that instant, I knew with absolute certainty—
the countdown had begun.

Before closing the notebook, I wrote one last sentence:

“If only one of us can remain, why shouldn’t you disappear instead?”

This time, he answered quickly.

So quickly it felt as if the answer had been prepared long ago:

“Because you still believe this is your life.”
“And I no longer need that.”

I closed the notebook.

For the first time, I understood that the so-called apocalypse might not be the collapse of the world.

But rather—
that I must decide which version of me deserves to continue.