"Oh, got divorced." The other man coughed twice, trying to break the awkward silence. As time passed, his small habits gradually overlapped with those of the father I remembered, and I found I could predict what he'd say next.
"By the way, I've been meaning to tell you—your watch is pretty nice. Is it the latest model? Let me try it on." Sure enough.
"It's the one you gave me. Of course you'd like it." I unclasped the watch and handed it to him. It was an old-fashioned black quartz wristwatch, long out of style—I'd been mocked for it by Aaron more than a few times. But since it was the first birthday present he'd ever given me, I'd kept wearing it.
"I gave you this?" He slipped it on and examined it from left to right, looking thoroughly pleased. "I've never given a guy a gift before. Guess I must really like you."
"Obviously." What parent doesn't love their own child? I almost blurted that out, but on second thought, I knew it wasn't always true. It was just that I'd never doubted my father's love for me, even though I'd had countless complaints and grievances about him.
When I learned of his death, I didn't cry. Not at the funeral, either. I thought that was all there was to it—the pain of losing a loved one wasn't as overwhelming as people made it out to be. But for some reason, I'd think of him at the most unexpected moments, missing him so fiercely that my nose would sting and I'd have to fight with everything I had to hold back tears. Like right now—perfectly fine one second, and the next, barely able to keep from crying.
"I miss you." Even though I knew the person across from me wasn't the one I truly longed for, they were, after all, the same person. Just being able to say those words felt like enough.
"So suddenly? Do you need me to play along? I'm not great at father-son bonding scenes." His exaggerated, theatrical expression snapped me out of my emotions. Good thing I hadn't cried—he would have laughed me to death.
"Forget it. Just saying." I rolled my eyes at him.
"By the way, I haven't asked yet—what happened to your face?" He pointed at the wound on my cheek.
"Oh, I hit myself." I said it as calmly as I could, but that only set him off into another fit of laughter.
"Hahaha! You hit yourself? That's hilarious!" He seemed to have found his comedic sweet spot. Please stop already. "Then if I hit you right now, does that count as being hit by a dead guy? This world is so messed up. Who knows what it'll become. Right, son?"
Even though it was a profound question, I wasn't in the mood to engage with him right now. But he didn't seem to care about my attitude, pressing on regardless.
"But wait—you said earlier that none of them would talk to you, that they had no reactions. So how did you end up in a fight? Do you have violent tendencies or something?"
"It wasn't that none of them talked. The last one I saw was different." I repeated what that version of myself had said, explaining why we'd fought.
"So what's your answer?"
"Huh?" I didn't immediately grasp his question.
"The answer to his question. What does it feel like to be about to die?" He paused, waiting for my response. But the question was too complicated—I didn't know where to begin or how to describe it. I could only shake my head.
"From where I'm standing, he wasn't mocking you or watching you suffer for his own amusement. He might have genuinely been curious. If you'd just answered his question and talked things through, maybe he would have authorized you. Instead, you didn't answer and then hit him. Weren't you just asking for trouble?"
"Yeah, yeah. Then tell me—what does dying feel like? You've got more experience than me. You even tried to kill yourself once." The moment the words left my mouth, I regretted them. He'd dodged the topic before—I shouldn't have brought it up. Seeing his silence, I quickly added, "I was joking. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."
"Actually, that question is really hard." He looked up and thought for a while. "As you know, I was going to kill myself by slitting my wrists. It didn't hurt—by then I was in so much pain that physical pain was almost a relief. I just felt cold. The more blood flowed, the colder I got, until I grew groggy and started to drift off. I knew I was about to die."
"Were you discovered? Who saved you?" If he hadn't been saved, there would have been no me later.
"Well, actually, no one saved me." He scratched his head, looking somewhat embarrassed—a rare sight. "Right as I was about to die, I suddenly smelled roasted sweet potatoes from the shop downstairs. I'd never thought they smelled that good. Then I felt hungry—I wanted a bite so badly that I didn't want to die anymore."
"So the sweet potatoes saved you." That ending genuinely surprised me. It sounded so random. Had he even been serious about wanting to die? Of course, that was something I'd never say to his face.
"Don't rush me, I haven't finished. After I came back from the hospital, I wanted to thank the shop owner. But he told me they'd been closed that day—they hadn't even opened, let alone roasted any sweet potatoes. That's when I realized the smell I'd detected didn't exist. It was something my own mind had conjured because, at that very last moment, I didn't truly want to die."
"I understand. You saved yourself."
"Exactly. So you can't give up either! Right now, isn't it true that only you can save yourself? I've answered the question. Think about it—time is running short." He pointed at the time on the watch.
"But my situation is different from yours. My opponent isn't myself—it's someone who wants me dead."
"Our family doesn't have a history of mental illness, so he wouldn't want you dead."
"Then what does he want? A practical joke? To see me dying?"
"Maybe that's exactly it." To my surprise, he nodded firmly. "You said your friend died a year ago, but you don't know why he died or what was on his mind before the end, right? Given how timid you are—and you wouldn't kill yourself—this method lets you experience death's doorstep without actually dying. Not bad, wouldn't you say?"
"How is this experiencing the feeling of near death? They're not me. They can see the countdown outside the door. What if they actually get me killed?"
Faced with my skepticism, he smiled and waved his hand in front of my eyes. The watch! How had I only just thought of it now? Although the people inside the room had inaccurate times on their watches, my own time had always stayed synchronized with the real world. It wouldn't be hard to deduce my remaining time. And I knew I'd keep wearing this watch. So everything made sense.
"But if that's the case, when does he plan to let me experience this until? He's not going to wait until the last minute before signing the authorization, is he?"
"That's easy." He raised his left hand and pulled out the watch's crown, setting the hands directly to 7:50. "Push the crown back in before you go inside, and he'll think there are only ten minutes left. I refuse to believe he wouldn't authorize with so little time remaining. But you need to watch your attitude—don't get into another fight with yourself."
"I still don't understand. If he wants to experience the feeling of being close to death, isn't he in the same boat as me? And they've all had less time than me—they already have the answer. Wouldn't they be more inclined to commune about these feelings? Why wouldn't they say anything?"
"It's not the same." He shook his head, looking at me. "You have a future. You're a real, living person. As for me, and every version of yourself you've met—we can only exist in this moment. Even if we knew the answer, it wouldn't do much good. So looking at it this way, you made a very clever choice during that hour you booked at the Booking Center. Perhaps only those who have understood death can truly know how to live."
"But—"
"How many 'buts' do you have?" He cut me off before I could finish. "Time is short. Since the problem's solved, get moving! What are you still doing here?"
"The moment I open that door, you'll disappear completely." Yelena had explained that authorization only opened once, and I could only meet one version of my father at eighteen. Did he really not understand that all my rambling was just a way to keep him with me a little longer? "Besides, the authorization won't take much time. I still have plenty left—"
"Are you an idiot? This is life and death—can't you leave yourself some margin? What if we've been talking all this time and we guessed wrong, and he still doesn't authorize you? You need time to come up with an alternative plan! Are you really going to leave yourself only ten minutes to go see him?" He looked exasperated, genuinely taking on the role of my father. "Go, hurry up. You just said I died a long time ago. Why are you so reluctant to let go?"
"I'm not reluctant at all!" I shot back, but then I started laughing. Damn it, my nose was tingling again. Maybe it really was time to leave. I'd said what I needed to say—all that remained was a farewell. I held out my hand. Since entering the room, perhaps out of subconscious avoidance, neither of us had touched the other. No handshake, nothing. "Goodbye."
"Hopefully we won't meet again too soon." He gripped my hand firmly. His temperature was warmer than mine. Even though I kept reminding myself he was just a copy, in this moment he was unquestionably a real person. I didn't dare ask whether, before I opened the door, he would relive the terror of death. Just as I couldn't let myself dwell on whether, in some sense, I had killed every version of myself I'd met.
I only knew what I needed to do now. There was a door I had to open, a person I had to face again, and a question I had to answer. A day impossible to escape, one I had to confront—apparently, this was the coming-of-age gift I'd given myself.
9
When I opened the door, Yelena was waiting for me. I figured she already knew what I was going to say.
"Can I reapply for authorization?" I asked.
"Of course." She smiled and nodded. "But—"
"But what?"
"You left something inside." She pointed to the room behind me. In the center of the building, now transparent again, lay a solitary black quartz watch.
When I picked it up, I could still feel the warmth it retained. Slipping it back on, I saw the hands had stopped at 7:50—his trick for me.
It didn't take long for Yelena to signal that everything was ready. I glanced up at the number on the door: 1:21:09. What a day—both endless and fleeting. I sighed softly and reset the watch to 6:39.
I wanted to trust my own feelings again. I didn't want to kill myself—I just wanted to live better. That meant the person I was about to face wasn't my enemy, but my closest friend.
In truth, regardless of whether authorization succeeded today, regardless of whether I had a future, I would never again have the chance to sit face-to-face with myself like this. I wanted to have a real conversation with him. We hadn't truly talked all day, and right now I had so much I wanted to say.
I took a deep breath, gripped the door handle, and prepared to meet the twenty-first version of myself.