A02 couldn’t clearly trace back to the day when he first felt his heart move for A01, as if his short life had been in love with him from the very beginning.
Perhaps it was because there was too much love for A01—so much that he couldn’t contain anything else. For instance, he often couldn’t recall the scene of the day he was adopted, which he thought should be a very happy memory. He couldn’t even remember what he had forgotten, and had checked himself for this, but the report results were undoubtedly normal.
The medical technology at the shelter was already quite advanced, and since the examination results there showed no issues, there likely wouldn’t be any problem.
But he remembered the experience of growing up with A01, remembered A01 teaching him and protecting him like an older brother, and also remembered all of A01’s likes and preferences.
Of course, he would never forget the wild, grass-like desire that grew when he faced A01. He didn’t want to just be a non-blood-related brother, didn’t want to just stand shoulder to shoulder with him without being able to hold his hand.
There were too many nights of yearning and loneliness, so A02 remembered clearly the scene when he confessed to A01.
They were standing in the laboratory, looking at samples through the glass cover, when he lightly called A01.
He turned around and looked at him with the same calm expression as usual, “What is it?”
“I…” After struggling for a moment, he forgot the carefully organized words from before, those complicated, flowery phrases of pursuit, leaving only a heart that was beating very fast.
“I like you, brother, I’ve liked you since a long time ago.”
A01’s expression didn’t change much. He just lifted his eyes slightly and looked at him, as if conducting some sort of observation.
At that moment, he thought A01 was confirming his sincerity, so he wanted to take out his heart to show him, hoping he would understand.
“I’m not lying, I’m not deceiving you, I can swear. Brother, believe me. Even if you reject me and can’t be with me, at least… believe me.”
Perhaps his earnestness at that moment was too apparent, or perhaps his expression couldn’t hide his emotions, so A01 smiled softly.
He said, “I believe you.”
But that was all. He didn’t respond to the confession, allowing that wild grass to grow unchecked.
Actually, A02 had somewhat anticipated this. He knew that a perfect, flawless brother, high above like the sun, wouldn’t easily fall for him. Moreover, he was born with a defect, and their relationship had been destined since the day he was adopted.
For many days afterward, A02 was at a loss. He didn’t know how to talk to his brother, whether to take the stance of a pursuer or a brother. But he found that A01 had changed. His concern for him was no longer limited to the past. He would suddenly compliment his clothes, tease him about his easily reddened ears, or tell him, “You’re cute.”
When he really couldn’t help but react cutely, A01 would observe.
Applying stimulus—gathering feedback—observing the reaction.
A01 was adept at it.
Until the day they were notified of their father’s critical condition. Outside the hospital room, he anxiously waited for news.
Suddenly, A01, who was sitting outside with his head down, spoke in a slightly hoarse voice, “Let’s be together.”
A02 was completely stunned. On a sad day, he received the greatest happiness, a contradiction that was indescribable. But because A01 hugged him and showed a vulnerable, needing comfort side, A02 didn’t hesitate and also hugged him, agreeing.
The joy of dreams coming true overshadowed all subtle doubts. He felt like the happiest person in the world, from being an abandoned baby to now a researcher and manager, able to realize his dreams and ambitions, helping more people like him. Not only that, he had the perfect lover he longed for.
There couldn’t be a possibility of greater happiness.
He and A01 would secretly kiss in the office of the shelter, secretly hold hands under the table while registering children. They watched circus performances together, visited their father’s grave together, and cuddled up in the large bedroom on the top floor reading books. He nervously gave his all to A01, but fortunately, A01 wasn’t disappointed. He embraced him and said he loved him.
That was enough. A01 was very busy, so he would quickly leave after intimacy to get back to work. He didn’t want to be an unreasonable partner, so he readily accepted it, lightly kissing his hand before he left.
After all, he was the one who, while folding paper cranes with the children, would pray for A01’s safety and happiness. Countless past fantasies wove into a huge net, making him have nowhere to escape. Being together was already a dream, and he wouldn’t demand more.
He was stingy with himself but always tolerant of A01.
“You really like looking at me.”
Hearing this, A01’s eyes widened slightly, but soon, this subtle emotion was hidden.
A02 smiled, hugging his arm, kissing his lips, “When you calm down, you’re always looking at me.”
Was this a sign of liking him?
If he didn’t like him, he wouldn’t want to look more than a glance.
Self-persuasion made him feel sweet, so he continued to ask for kisses, deeper and deeper.
He even forgot that A01 hadn’t answered him.
Sometimes he felt that the A01 in front of him was an illusory bubble, so he would repeatedly ask, wanting to hold him at all times, buy couples’ watches and clothes, and do anything that made him feel possessed.
It seemed that this way, A01 truly belonged to him.
“When did you start liking me?”
Lying in bed, A02 would use a nearly innocent tone, leaning on A01’s chest, asking like an ordinary lover.
A01 was silent for a while, so A02 propped himself up and looked at him.
“Maybe… when you were eighteen,” he said, giving a time but not being specific. However, A02 didn’t mind at all, not even thinking he was being perfunctory. Instead, he thought, by answering this question, it surely meant he liked him.
“But I don’t remember,” he said in a slightly coquettish tone, lying on A01’s chest with bright, beautiful eyes. “My memory isn’t great. I often can’t remember anything, so I don’t recall when I started liking you.”
Hearing this, A01 rarely raised his hand and touched his cheek with his fingers. “Really? I thought you remembered.”
A02 shook his head. “But most things are clear.”
He quietly listened to his lover’s heartbeat for a while and then spoke to himself, “If… a person’s memory completely disappeared, that person would no longer exist, right?”
A01 did not respond to him.
Instead, he, with a sweet and affectionate expression, got up and kissed his cheek. “If I could, I really wish I could invent a way to preserve memories forever, both yours and mine, so we could always be together, right?”
A01’s brow furrowed.
He smiled lightly, not like a laugh but more like a sigh, but A02, immersed in love, couldn’t see it.
“Yeah,” A01 softly echoed, with a bit of unnoticed guilt.
When one falls in love, time flies by extremely fast. The more A02 wanted to cherish every moment with him, the more he realized he couldn’t grasp those moments.
It wasn’t just time that was uncontrollable, but also his body.
From one day, he started to inexplicably have nosebleeds, suddenly feel dizzy, and his vision would go black, taking a long time to recover.
He discovered his blood clotting function also had issues, but no matter how many times he checked, the results were normal.
These were all deviations within the normal range.
A01’s birthday was approaching, so he didn’t pay much attention to these little things.
He was diligently preparing to celebrate his lover’s birthday, giving him many, many gifts, and asking all the children to write birthday wishes for A01, which he carefully collected.
He hoped that if A01 was happy this time, maybe their relationship could be out in the open, acknowledged by everyone, no longer pretending to be just brothers.
“I have a gift for you!”
He sneaked up from behind and covered A01’s eyes. “It’s a surprise.”
A01 smiled, casually turning off the system he was operating, placing his hands over A02’s hands, patiently asking, “What is it?”
“Ta-da!” A02 laughed like a child, taking out a big, beautiful gift box and opening it in front of him. Inside were the birthday wishes from all the children at the shelter for A01.
It was clear that A01 was surprised at the moment he saw the gift.
Each wish was carefully folded into the shape of a heart by A02, something he had painstakingly prepared over many days.
“Do you like it? Open and see, they wrote very seriously, they all like you very much.”
He hugged A01’s neck from behind, so he didn’t see A01’s frown and the dazed, somewhat empty look in his eyes.
He thanked like a perfect robot, mechanically opening the hearts, flattening the paper, reading quietly, and then putting on a happy face to make A02 happy.
“I knew you’d like it!” A02 smiled and kissed his cheek. “I love you.”
Observation and reaction.
A01 clenched his hand.
Should he record this too?
A work call took A02 away. “Brother, take your time reading. I have something to handle first. Happy birthday.”
The door closed softly, giving A01 a moment of respite.
He silently looked at the data he had recorded in [Growth Show], constantly telling himself it was all for humanity.
Everything was for humanity.
But at this moment, he couldn’t convince himself. The original goal had long deviated.
A02 was just an experiment. He was chosen because of his defect.
His father picked him from so many children to be the main character of the Growth Show, cloning experimental samples, freezing them, raising the first A02, treating his genetic defect, giving him care and love, providing a perfect companion, cute friends and colleagues, letting him grow up under “happy” experimental conditions.
If it failed and he died, they would replace him. Revive a new clone, transplant the previous memories, and pass them on one by one.
A02’s soul would live forever in countless samples.
A01 chose to place himself, from the experiment’s leader and observer, into the experiment, greedily taking love and warmth from A02, then coldly recording these emotions as data. Over and over, his lovers entered the incinerator one by one, then were taken out from the cryo-chamber one by one.
Until recently, he saw A02’s coughing back, glimpsed the bloody tissue he wiped, asked him what was wrong, and got a happy shake of the head, denying any physical problems. At that moment, he felt a dull, slow pain in his heart.
He realized he couldn’t extricate himself.
He no longer wanted some great achievement of human immortality, didn’t want to be a cold and even crazy pioneer, didn’t want to stimulate and test the one he loved anymore. He just wanted him to live, to be with him till the end.
A01 was like a robot with a bug.
His extreme faith and the deviations it caused also led to bugs in the system he had always controlled.
The permissions strictly divided by floors suddenly became fully accessible. In the past, A02 could never enter floors other than the top and the fourth floor, but that night, he was surprised to find he could.
Originally, he was supposed to wait for the staff from E-level to come to him, but when he discovered he had access, he hurriedly went to E-level himself.
By a twist of fate, on the night A01 was repenting, A02 saw himself in the cryo-chamber, countless versions of himself.
The storage room was huge and extremely cold; he felt his limbs go numb. He stood in the middle of the empty storage room, accepting the fact that he was just one of the many experimental subjects.
Many clues surfaced the moment the truth was revealed.
It turned out everything had been a foreshadowing.
He was nothing, not A02, not a lucky adopted child, not even a truly independent human being.
When he left the storage room in despair and went to other areas of E-level, he saw with his own eyes the “discarded” children being incinerated and the place where their bodies were kept. He realized that even everything he held as faith was fake.
Everything was fake.
He was just a clown being pushed around in the theater, while A01 was the audience watching him with a smile and applauding.
When he killed the first person, he cried in pain.
He felt like a monster, realizing that was how they all saw him.
It turned out everyone was using him.
Everyone probably knows when their end is near; it seems to be an intuition granted by life. A02 was no exception.
The thought of his impending death made him not want them to awaken another clueless version of himself, foolishly continuing to love everyone.
It would be better to end it all bloodily.
By the time he reached the last floor, A02 was numb. He calmly changed clothes, took a shower, and during the process, he thought, A01 had probably tolerated him for a very long time.
That made sense.
There were so many people in the world he could choose from; why would A01 love him?
Even if he didn’t love him, they could die together.
He poured red wine and added poison, gently shaking his wrist.
When he walked up to A01, he heard him say that the security system had issues and the surveillance was down, needing urgent maintenance.
“Don’t rush to work,” A02 stood in front of him, smiling beautifully. “Today is your birthday, let me celebrate it for you first.”
He still looked as obedient and docile as before, doing whatever A01 wanted.
After confirming this, A01 hugged him with some relief, letting him sit on his lap, speaking with unprecedented gentleness about his hopes for the future.
Perhaps his guilt had accumulated so much that he described things very movingly, and his kisses were more passionate than ever.
“I bought a new house. We can move there later and not stay here. You’re sick; I’ll find a doctor to treat you well. Don’t be afraid, you’ll get better. You don’t have to hide it from me; I know everything.”
A01’s lips curved slightly, his face showing a loving glow. “Thank you for having the children write letters to me. I’ve read each one. I plan to make our relationship public; everyone might have guessed it anyway. Also, I know you like children; we can adopt one and have a small wedding, okay?”
Children.
A02 smiled. “Sure, you said it, don’t forget.”
He brought the red wine to A01’s lips. “We’ll live happily ever after, right?”
A01 nodded, taking a sip of the wine his lover handed him. The slightly bitter sweetness flowed into his body.
A02 turned his head, hugging his neck, like a devoted pet, expressing his affection.
“I really love you. I remember now; I loved you from the first time I saw you.”
“You were standing at the end of the corridor, looking very handsome, the most handsome boy I’d ever seen. But that day, you didn’t smile at me, which made me sad. You didn’t like me then, did you?”
A01 hurriedly denied, “No, I just…”
“Wrong.” A02 tilted his head, looking innocent. “It was my original self.”
He saw A01’s expression change, heard his incredulous voice, and saw him spit out the first mouthful of black blood, staining him, like an indelible stain in their fate.
“My memories are either missing parts or repetitive, but there’s one thing, no matter how many times it’s copied, I firmly believe.”
A02 gently wiped the blood from his mouth and smiled.
“And that’s that I love you.”
A01’s eyes were stunningly beautiful, even the shock and pain in them now were incredibly beautiful.
“And you?” A02’s smile didn’t fade. “Do you remember which number I am?”
He spat out so much blood, staining the shirt he had given him, and the blood even touched their matching watches. The black blood seemed to attempt to cover up their wrongful acquaintance, drowning this dirty love, this inescapable deception.
“The future you talked about is really beautiful, but we can’t reach it.”
A02 smiled, giving the one he had loved for so long the best final kiss.
“Brother, let’s go to hell together.”
Let’s pretend that they still love each other.
