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He froze, then lowered his gaze to the floor. “No one knows the future.”

“I do. It’s in my heart.”

Something in my words caught him off guard. The shock in his eyes softened into some familiar warmth.

“I do, because every part of me leads back to you. I won’t say I can’t live without you. I can, but… it feels incomplete. You’re… a part of me. You’re in me. How can I abandon a part of myself? We can talk, we can work through it. No problem is greater than what we have. Am I wrong?”

He shook his head quickly.

“But you never talk to me.” My tone was lower now. “Talk to me, Raymond. Without lies, without… anything. Don’t hide your soul from me. The other Mina must have felt the same way. I’m better now, I don’t think I’d ever do something like kill myself, but… that’s what I was feeling. I mean…” I trailed off, my hands moving vaguely in the air as I struggled to put it into words.

“Every time I told you I loved you, I felt like you didn’t care. My emotions didn’t affect our relationship. No matter what I did or felt, you’d stay there. I… I meant nothing to you. Does this make sense? You kept saying you’d die for me, do anything for me. I wanted to do the same for you. But I… couldn’t keep up with you. I was afraid I couldn’t love you as much as you did. Why did we turn love into a race in the first place? Is that what love is? I don’t think it’s something measurable. I don’t know…”

He was silent, and I tittered.

“Am I making sense?” I whispered, stressed, embarrassed. “I… don’t know what I’m saying. Did I explain it well?”

“I understood.”

He reached out, and took a strand of my burned now-turned-navy hair, playing with it on his finger. “I… I can’t help but feel happy. I’m happy you’re still alive. I’m happy you told me these things. I feel so lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“And regretful.”

He lowered his gaze, then pressed his lips together.

“I’m…I’m sorry. I was just… trying to do what I thought was right. Making you feel good made me feel good, too. Seeing you smile made me forget everything else, too. You know, Mina… loving you felt so good. I was so blinded by the fact that I was capable of loving someone that I didn’t consider your feelings. I don’t know. It’s all so complicated.”

When he fell silent, I let out a long sigh.

“It’s actually not. You just need to see it’s not one-sided.”

“One-sided…?”

“Remember the pain you felt when you found me on the bathroom floor.”

“Mina.”

“I feel the same. I feel that pain, too. Every time you push me away… a part of me dies. You don’t want that, do you? I don’t want to see you like this either.”

“I just didn’t want to be a burden to you…

“How could someone you love ever be a burden to you? Was I a burden to you?”

“Of course not!”

“Then you can’t be a burden to me either. Why don’t you understand? Do you even know how I felt when I saw those clones?”

His gaze found the clones on the corner of the room. His face winced.

“Disgusted, of course?”

“No.” I smiled weakly. “I felt relieved. Seeing you lose your mind like this… it might sound awful, but I liked that we shared a… vulnerability. Now after everything… I thought… My Remi can bleed too.”

I stood up, then my fingers traced from his thin brows to his long lashes, his sharp jaw and cheekbones. Despite his decay, my Remi was still like a heaven. He was still my sanctuary.

“Tell me how much you’ve bled. Let me see the wounds you’ve carried, the tears you’ve shed. Isn’t it unfair I don’t know yours while you know mine? Can’t you show your real self, hm?”