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—What was I like in the past?
Gat Cheung paused, thinking carefully. The scattered fragments of his childhood drifted into his mind. He remembered how people used to call him a walking disaster, trouble wrapped in small hands and nimble feet.
In his dream, he saw himself—a tiny, bright-eyed child, his small frame bathed in the morning sunlight. His toddler’s uniform, charming in its snug fit, untouched by time. He gazed at the unfamiliar world before him, curiosity gleaming in his eyes.
Gat Cheung’s unwavering, searing gaze did not go unnoticed. Little Gat Cheung, still gripping his backpack straps, tilted his head, muttering as he looked back. Across the road, past and present met—hesitant, uncertain, colliding in a way that defied time. Morning light blurred at the edges, soft and fragmented.
They say a child’s nature is set by age three. Little Gat Cheung was no exception—bold, reckless, unafraid of life or death, just as he was now. Without a thought for the traffic, he lunged forward, feet barely touching the ground. Wind tangled his freshly cut hair. He ran, unhesitating, unyielding. He stopped before Gat Cheung, clear eyes locking onto his, and with a steady voice parted his mouth.
“Mister, what’s your name?”
The voice was pleasant, soft.
“Oh, me?”
Gat Cheung looked down at his younger self, staring deeply into his wide, teary eyes. If he said his name, would the child doubt him? He hesitated for a moment as a thought flickered through his mind—he recalled how Sap Yi Siu never called him by his full name. Instead, with the gaze of a superior, he always used a nickname, one that never quite suited a man.
“My name is Siu Gat—a name cast beneath a sky thick with crows, uncertain, just like fate itself,”
“Oh wow, what a coincidence! My name is Siu Gat too—Wai Siu Gat, as in ‘Gat of great fortune.’”
The child beamed, laughter light and serene. Just like that, the distance between them vanished. Basked in sunlight, his past self radiated warmth. His smile, sweet as honey, his laughter soft and delicate—like the gentle morning light flowing through the curtains on a spring day.
“So, mister, why do you only have one eye?”
The sunlight fractured—its glow splintering into jagged streaks that spilled across the ground. Shadows twisted into sharp arcs, curving like the cold, gleaming edge of a sickle.
“Why are you different from me?”
The child stood still, tilting his head. His wide eyes warped, shifting unnaturally. His words were never meant as a question—yet his smile remained, radiant but brittle, gleaming like a cursed doll. Innocence laced with ignorance, his gaze seeped fear, spreading like an infection. Silent despair crept from every corner, flooding over and drowning them under.
—Myself from the past and myself from now.
The fragile, thin boundary was so clear, so defined—yet so maddening.
—
In the dusk-lit streets, a boy in a crisp middle school uniform proudly held out his paper to his older self.
The topic was ordinary: “My Ambition,” Beneath the crooked title, tilted as if swept askew by a typhoon, the teacher had marked in red ink: “80 points. Progress shown. Keep up the good work,”
Gat Cheung recalled his school grades; it shifted unpredictably, rising and falling like the tides of his mother’s emotions. She would smile when his father came home and cry when he walked out, money in hand, door slamming behind him. That cycle repeated endlessly. Those memories, when recalled, carried a suffocating pain with them.
Gat Cheung’s dream was to become a doctor for animals.
He squinted at the boy in front of him—his younger self, wore his new uniform carelessly and unkempt. He doubted the boy could even spell “veterinarian,” let alone associate himself with the word “doctor”. The high scores were nothing more than a teacher’s encouragement for students to pursue an acceptable path. After all, a child dreaming of becoming a doctor wouldn’t end up as a criminal.
“What a coincidence. I once wanted to be a good doctor too,”
Gat Cheung recalled how he used to joke with his men. Whenever he saw an enemy, he thought they were sick and felt the urge to operate on them for free.
“Say whatever you want, I don’t believe you,”
The younger Gat Cheung laughed, his tone careless as he kicked at the gravel and sipped his soda through a straw. His speech was muffled, his gaze drifting to the blade at Gat Cheung’s waist.
“Are you sure you wanted to treat patients and not secretly kill them?”
He gestured toward Gat Cheung’s waist. Without a word, Gat Cheung lifted two fingers shaped in a ‘V’ as his response—a silent dismissal. He had no intention of discussing the weapon any further, and his younger self didn’t push the issue. Instead, he kicked at a loose stone, and casually switched topics.
“Well, I’ve been thinking of buying a guitar lately,”
The younger Gat Cheung scratched at his messy red hair.
“I’ve got my eye on a red one. Pretty sure I’d look cool playing it. These days, girls love a guy who can play…… but who knows if my hands are fast enough. Not that it matters—I don’t have the money to learn anyway,”
He lowered his head, nodding absentmindedly—unaware of the meaning behind his own gestures. Wind rustled through his hair, slipping past his ears. For a fleeting moment, he looked lost. Stray. Like something left behind with nowhere to go.
“……Give me your hand. Let’s see if those fingers have any talent,”
Gat Cheung extended his hand, waiting for his younger self’s palm. The boy glanced up, then obediently pulled his hand from his pocket without hesitation, stretching out each of his fingers toward Gat Cheung.
Gat Cheung pressed his palm against his younger self’s, facing him directly. His own hand, lean and strong, bore fragmented scars. The other’s hand, though bony and well-defined, was fragile, almost delicate, reflecting a childlike innocence that they were too unaware to recognize.
The faint sound of their touch echoed in the silence. The presence that had lingered, like a shadow lost in time, stood before him now, no longer out of reach.
“Oh look, our palm lines are the same!”
His younger self flipped his hand over, staring at his palm as if he had stumbled upon something unimaginable.
“Isn’t it impossible for someone to have the same palm print as you?”
He tilted his head, peeking out from behind his hand with wide-eyes. The words sounded like a question, but his voice carried certainty, as if he had already decided the truth before doubt could take hold.
“Then that means you traveled back in time to find me, like Doraemon, right? Because you’re me, aren’t you?”
—You are me. How could you not be?
Gat Cheung’s smile froze, his brows furrowing as hesitation and unease crept in. He took a step back.
“No,”
The cold metal of the lamppost pressed against his back. There was nowhere to escape. His voice was firm—yet unsteady, like something slipping through his grasp before he could hold onto it.
“You will become me, but I can never go back to being you,”
The trembling grew clearer; its warning of separation echoed in the still air.
Buried within the same body, yet the selves refused to merge. The youthful boy’s smile, once bright, once real, had already faded into the past. Nothing more than a lingering reflection.
—
The sun finally bowed to the west, and the last faint strands of red light dissolved into the air, falling into the embrace of darkness.
When Gat Cheung met himself again, he was already a young adult.
He was kneeling. Shattered remnants of the red guitar surrounded him, ruined beyond repair. His sister’s tears clung to the floor. His reddened eyes, hollow and distant, stared blankly at the figure before him. His present self.
“Why?”
The young man who once carried hope now wore a face carved by anguish, twisted beyond recognition. His father’s debt remained unpaid, and the price had been scarred into his sister’s flesh. The kind, innocent girl he had cherished had suffered in his father’s place.
“That is fate,” Gat Cheung murmured, his gaze falling, heavy with regret.
“Did you forget? They’re the ones who carved scars into Siu Lei’s face, the ones who stole her future—how can you forgive him so easily?”
“He wasn’t the one who gave the order,” Gat Cheung refuted, but his voice wavered, and his legs tensed beneath him.
“You even lost your eye for him. Was it really worth it?”
“It was worth it. For Boss, everything is worth it,”
Gat Cheung’s conviction did not waver. His palm tightened around the hilt of his blade, as if the name of the man he swore to protect could shield him from the words that sought to break him. He repeated it, again and again, turning it into a silent incantation.
Then, as he commanded, the dream bent to his will. The cries of the other-self faded, swallowed by the void. The world lost its sound, leaving only sight—sharp, relentless, bleeding into every corner of his mind where voices once existed.
The young man on his knees still struggled. His body trembled, filled with a hatred so fierce it felt like it could shatter the world. His restless soul fought against the confines of his flesh, desperate to break free. Unshed tears clung to his eyelashes, frozen, refusing to fall. Gat Cheung didn’t know if this fight for existence was perseverance or humiliation, if it deserved praise or punishment. He only knew one thing—the man he worshipped would never accept this version of himself. Sap Yi Siu believed only those who could stand were worthy of being seen.
Maybe Gat Cheung had once hated Sap Yi Siu with everything he had. But that hatred had begun to fade. What was once a vivid, burning image had dulled, transforming into a black-and-white outline—a memory stripped of color, its edges blurred, its presence fading.
His past self and Sap Yi Siu were never equal choices to begin with.
Gat Cheung suddenly realized—he had clung so stubbornly to his past self that it should have faded long ago. Buried beneath time. Lost to the void.
“You don’t exist anymore,”
Gat Cheung’s voice was hoarse. Each word sliced through the silence—lingering, carving itself into the air. He tilted his head, his remaining eye blinking slowly, not in hesitation, but in quiet understanding. Regret had no place in him anymore.
“That’s right……you don’t exist anymore,”
“But Boss does. He’s still here—right beside me,”
Without warning, he drew his blade—and in an instant, it plunged deep into the fragile self beneath him. As the blade tore through the air, time fractured, splintering into silence. The sensation of flesh splitting surged through his hands. The most violent screams were ripped from existence. Consumed.
For a fleeting moment, Gat Cheung thought the sensation was nothing more than an illusion. He didn’t hear their agony—only saw their face seize in a breathless pause, caught between helplessness and despair. Yet, he felt liberated. Relief beyond words surged through him, not just release, but transformation. Rebirth. From the very beginning of this dream, he had always been meant to do this. To carve the future with his own blood.
—This was how he had always lived.
How could he forget?
The warmth of the one he longed to hold—was the only real thing, isn’t it?
The abandoned Gat Cheung knelt on the ground, pupils unfocused, lips still parted with the remnants of unspoken words. Impatiently, Gat Cheung shoved him down, as if the figure before him was an enemy rather than himself.
No—this was Sap Yi Siu’s enemy. His greatest enemy. The force that threatened his unwavering devotion, the final trace of doubt.
Gat Cheung straddled his abandoned self, fingers tightening around their throat. Beneath his grip, the pulse throbbed, a frantic rhythm mirroring his own heartbeat. He clenched harder, feeling the desperate flutter grow erratic, like a bowstring trembling on the edge of snapping. He watched as the other gasped soundlessly, red eyes gleaming like shattered glass. Fingertips clawed at the ground, splintering into dust. He loved this—the sight of himself, dying, struggling in vain. The helpless resistance, the body breaking beneath him—it was exhilarating. For the first time, he witnessed his own death.
There wouldn’t be another chance, Gat Cheung thought. His body, steeped in ruthlessness, responded instinctively—but he felt a quiet regret. The silence of the killing made it incomplete, leaving only a slight imperfection.
Blood seeped from the wound, spilling in slow, uneven streams before drying into a lifeless stain. The only trace left was a butterfly-shaped imprint on his neck. Gat Cheung’s hands, drenched in his own darkening blood, had already begun to lose their warmth. He stared at the stiffening body before him, his gaze hollow, detached. Then, everything became unfocused, dissolving at the edges until, at last, it faded, merging into the air.
The corpse’s eyes never closed, as if holding onto blame. Without averting his eye, Gat Cheung tore away the blood-stained blade—a weapon Sap Yi Siu had chosen for him one winter.
The self he once knew—the one so close it had nearly fused with him—vanished before his eye.
Gat Cheung had killed himself.
When he woke from the dream, the thought lingered, circling back again and again. He refused to call it suicide.