Sublimation(84)

It makes him laugh. He says yes.



—she collapses through on the other side.



* * *



When Soyoung gets home, she opens the files she’s copied from Yujin’s USB. She reads the instructions for utilizing the machine. For catalyzing the separation process. For activating the reintegration process. For stopping instancing. For starting instancing. What the waveforms on the screen need to look like, for various configurations of instances. What does it mean, that Soyoung’s memory reverberated longer than Rose’s? She doesn’t precisely remember what the screen looked like, beforehand, when Gerry was using it.

In her head, she recites the rest of Rose’s memory: They played the video game together, and then they went and got pizza at the place that did the fried chicken pizza, and they talked about who everyone from high school was dating or had broken up with. She’s heard that every time you remember a memory, that memory is then rewritten. She wonders what is getting rewritten, in the Mitosis machine. If the reintegration afterward is subtly different. But there’s no way for her to know. It doesn’t feel like that day in the forest.





YUJIN


The only reason you notice is because you’re on Soyoung’s Instagram, updating her profile with a Seoul-based location tag. Just a photo of a very pretty cup of a chocolate-coffee concoction, with a high tower of whipped cream and little candy pearls. Aesthetic girl–type post. Aesthetic girl–type drink. You ordered it because it was something Soyoung would buy for a post. Not what she would actually drink. Not what you would order for her, as a joke.

Soyoung’s Instagram is all photographs like this—pretty candy-color concoctions, with the occasional photo of her in profile, the occasional photograph of her and Tae, photographs of her and her family sometimes. You scrolled through idly. Then you saw Rose Kang on the list of recommended profiles. You clicked on it.

Rose’s Instagram is a lot like Soyoung’s. Less cute little cafes, more bars. More photographs with her friends—there’s a blond girl that shows up a lot. More photographs of her alone in front of a pretty landscape or a landmark. You scroll back up. Then you stop. The second-to-last photo—a pretty landscape with rolling hills. She’s standing, looking tired but happy. There’s a shadow of a man in front of her.

You recognize that shadow. It’s an absurd thing to say—but you do. That’s your shadow. That’s your silhouette. That’s YJ’s silhouette, and attached to it is YJ’s body, taking Soyoung’s photo. You hadn’t thought they were still hanging out. You’ve seen videos of Manhattan. There’s no way they’re in the city. They’re on a trip together somewhere. YJ’s the photographer.

You think for a moment. Then you open your shared photo drive to see what YJ’s phone has been uploading.

Photographs of Soyoung. Photographs and photographs of Soyoung. Soyoung in front of mountains. Soyoung at a restaurant. Soyoung at the park, holding a SpongeBob ice cream bar. You catch glimpses of YJ in reflections on glass, in his shadow on the floor. Things you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking, unless you were the man in the photograph looking for your other self. And maybe this is friendship. But you know yourself. You know who you are, and you know what it looks like when you like someone, when you care about them, when they’re the sort of girl that makes you imagine a whole future with them. You have never seen this expression outside of an accidental glimpse of your reflection in a restaurant mirror.

You’ve never looked at Soyoung that way—not without the soft cushion of your previous friendship, without the glass wall of knowing she’s taken.

“That motherfucker,” you say. You almost admire your other self’s nerve.



* * *



In the first world, they split apart and never meet again. In the second world, they grow up together and she falls in love with someone else—more than that, she falls in commitment, builds a future and a life with him, and you never want anything at all. In the third world, you aren’t yourself, and you haven’t known her in the contexts you know her, and she knows you in more contexts than you know yourself, and—

What are you talking about? Attraction isn’t love. A crush doesn’t mean anything. Have they slept together? You didn’t think that Soyoung was that sort of girl. No, that’s shitty. What you really don’t like is that it’s him and not you.



* * *



You drink the too-sweet coffee. You kind of wish Soyoung was here, Soyoung before everything, who would be the one drinking the coffee and she would have bought you a drink that was truly the worst concoction of all time. Soyoung who you could just ask questions of and have answered. You wish you were YJ, so you would know what he’s thinking without needing to ask him. You spend too long looking through the photos. You try and find any other evidence of … anything. How Soyoung feels about this. Whether there’s a relationship here, or just one-sided attraction. Or if you’re just imagining things. But you don’t think you are. You know yourself.

You don’t know what to do about this information. You wonder whether you should tell someone. But who to tell? You’re Soyoung’s friend, not Tae’s friend, and anyway, you don’t have any proof. You can’t go to him with a bunch of photographs and say, Hey man, I think your fiancé’s reintegration is cheating on you with my instance. And you can’t talk to YJ about this. You play the conversation out in your head. You imagine being him. You don’t know if you would tell the truth, if you were asked. You would dodge the question. You would change the subject. You would say something like, What are you talking about and I thought you told me we should be friends—I was just taking a photograph for her. And you can’t talk to Soyoung about this. It would spiral, messily. And half of Soyoung doesn’t have the context in which to know you.