Sublimation(102)

And you want to drag him back. You want him to feel what you feel. You don’t want him to get to leave you behind forever. You want to suck his memories into your self. Better for you and YJ to be stuck in Korea, better for you to be conglomerate and miserable. He doesn’t want to reintegrate? You don’t care.

“Soyoung. I’ll do you one better. I’ll show up in person.”

“In person?”

“In New York. I won’t instance if I leave,” you say. “I know it. I want to confront him. I can convince him in person.”

“You’re really enthusiastic, all of a sudden.”

“I know what I want to do now,” you say. “Call me with the details, when you have them.”

You hang up.





YJ


Can we talk?

Soyoung’s text surprises you in the middle of a meeting. You have to fight to keep your face neutral while one of your coworkers talks about the fourth quarter projections.

Sure, you text back, underneath the table.

Your place? Friday?

The fourth quarter projections are looking pretty good. You wonder how much better they’d look, if Drew had been allowed to go through with his full-scale Mitosis rollout.

Sure, you text back again. You want to say something like, sorry about everything. You want to say, you misunderstood me. You want to ask, are we good? But you don’t say anything. After your call with Petra, you feel a little burnt out on questions like that. You’ve gotten your vulnerability out of your system.





YUJIN


The airport hasn’t changed since you were there last, characterized mostly by the high, airy ceilings with the rows and rows of check-in desks. Incheon Airport was the first airport you ever went to. You remember thinking that it was so large, when you first saw it. Like it was a spaceship. The last time you were here, you were nineteen.

You’ve only got your backpack and your passport and your boarding ticket on your phone. Around you, there are families with their suitcases piled high on carts and their children bobbing and weaving; couples in matching outfits; white foreigner tourists. This feels illegal. You dodge around all of them and get to the Asiana desk. Checking in all goes smoothly. The desk lady looks confused that you don’t have any luggage, not even a carry-on. But she checks you in and then you’re through and to the security check, where you churn mechanically through the line. You take your laptop out, your shoes off.

You go through the scanner. You pick up your laptop and put on your shoes.

Then you get in line for the customs and immigration booth. They have electronic terminals now—the last time you were here, they still had people stamping the passports. You get in line. You’re thinking about the last time you were here. When you were still singular. Back then, you had been thinking about: your dorm room, what homework you hadn’t finished for your classes. You hadn’t been thinking about anything at all.



* * *



There are offshoots of Christianity that claim that upon death, the soul is instanced. The good and noble part gets to go to heaven. The bad, nasty, sinful part goes to hell.



* * *



You get in the line for citizens. You are thinking about homecoming. You are going to grab your other self and you are going to pull him into you. You are going to make him understand. You are going to stay yourself. How dare he treat you this way. How dare he not tell you, like a coward. You are going to inflict your life on him like a curse. You step through the immigration booth. You keep walking. You don’t think you’ve left anything behind. You are going to come back. You are going to get everything back.





SOYOUNG-ROSE


“I’m sorry,” YJ says, before saying hello, before any other greeting. “It was below the belt, what I said. I was angry. I’m sorry. Genuinely.”

Soyoung blinks at the open doorway, at YJ standing in it. He doesn’t move. “Can I come in?”

“Sorry, yes.”

YJ opens the door wider, and Soyoung steps through. It’s a blunt reversal of the other week, when he had come to tell her about the meeting with his boss. She hasn’t brought food, but in every other aspect these meetings are the same except that she’s the one with an agenda.

Yujin just texted her that he’s boarded the plane. Tonight, Soyoung’s going to break into the Mitosis lab.

The living room is cleaner than when she last caught a glimpse. It looks less like a bachelor pad. It’s a little obvious that someone moved out. There are blank spaces in the apartment—an empty space in the bookshelf, an empty picture frame on the TV console.

“Can I get you—water? tea? A drink?”

“I’m okay,” Soyoung says. “I just thought—we could clear the air.”

“Sure, yes. Um.”

He makes a gesture with his hand, as if to ask her to begin. She walks over to his living room. YJ sits down on the couch. She doesn’t know if she should sit down. This is all tremendously awkward. This is more awkward than asking him for access to experimental technology.

“What do you want, from Soyoung and Rose, after?” Soyoung says.

YJ shakes his head.

“I don’t want—”

“Maybe ‘want’ is the wrong word,” she says. “I’m asking nonjudgmentally. Just, why?”