Archive of Our Own

Oh, if only I could begin again! Not to undo what has been done, nor to erase the years that have passed, but to stand once more before you. Let me come to you as I am. Let me be seen, and not turned away.

For what is a life worth, if one must forever remain a stranger even to those beside whom one longs to stay? What good is it to wander through all the world, if there is nowhere to lay down one’s weary heart? 

If you would only take my hand. If you could look upon all that I am, all that I have been, and still find some reason to let me remain beside you, then perhaps I could begin anew. Oh, let me have that small mercy! Let me be accepted. Let me begin again with you.

Let the past remain buried where it belongs, and let tomorrow be something other than another name for misery.

1.

          The moment Zandik created Segment 45, the Fatui cloak was promptly slapped onto him.

          The duty of attending meetings (a task the Segments had spent years passing around like a burning coal) had finally found its designated bearer. He could see the logic behind the arrangement. At forty-five, Zandik could, with some reluctance, be considered more responsible than his younger selves, or at least more patient when it came to the bureaucratic aspects of his position.

          Previously, Segment 35 had handled most of the meetings for Zandik had no better option at the time. But even a blind man could see that the guy wasn't to be trusted, let alone entrusted with anything as important as representing the interests of a roomful of other Zandiks.

          So, without any formal consensus whatsoever, the task now fell onto 45's shoulders.

          Understanding the logic of something and enjoying the reality of it, however, were two entirely different matters. Hence, he voiced a remark that was somewhere between a joke and a complaint:

          "I have the suspicion that part of the reason you created me was just to have someone attend meetings."

          "I needed someone more responsible here."

          Zandik spoke without looking up from the scan in his hand, as if he had already predicted exactly what 45 would say first. Maybe he had. After all, he had once been forty-five himself. 

          The implication was rather obvious: the swarm of Segments currently occupying his lab consisted largely of freeloaders. Yet no one objected. 

          Segment 18 merely raised a thumb towards him and said:

          "Congratulations, Chosen One."

          "A title that impressive, it really ought to go to you instead. Want it?"

          The answer came in the form of 18 sticking his tongue out like an insolent brat, followed by Omega's laughter. He was clearly enjoying 45's misfortune. A thoroughly unreliable bunch, these rascals.

          All in all, 45 had to grow accustomed to dragging himself from one meeting to the next, enduring the tedious speeches before returning to bury his head in reports full of absurd requests and even more absurd objectives. In between, there were always matters arising outside the lab that required Zandik's attention, which meant an endless cycle of meetings, paperwork, errands, and other administrative indignities that had somehow become his life.

          And since he saw no reason to suffer alone, he made certain to complain about them to his other versions. They were, unsurprisingly, extremely reluctant to listen.

          18 would grimace whenever 45 slung an arm around his shoulders to complain about some idiots he had encountered at a meeting, like he was attempting to crush a buzzing fly using nothing but the muscles in his face. In this metaphor, 45 was, of course, the fly.

          25 was even less cooperative. He would unwillingly engage in a tug-of-war trying to wrench his coat-tail free from 45's grip while 45 held on even stronger, refusing to let him escape before he had finished recounting the latest batch of reports and their ridiculous contents.

          65, meanwhile, would sit as motionless as a statue throughout the entire ordeal. He had apparently perfected the art of mentally leaving his body while remaining physically present.

          As for Omega, he would flash a punch-worthy grin on the rare occasions he returned to the lab, watching 45 struggle beneath a mountain of paperwork that was, technically, supposed to be shared between them. Then, just before 45 could hurl a poison vial at his head, he would disappear again.

          Every so often, whenever 45's complaints had become sufficiently incessant to make everyone's ears ring, Zandik would snap at Omega. And the bastard was an unbridled wild horse who refused to answer to anyone, but somehow, whatever Zandik said was enough to drag him back and make him attend to his duties properly. 

          On the rare occasions when Zandik was absent, 65, being the eldest of the Segments, would take over instead. And since 45 was senior to Omega as well, he would handle the guy himself whenever things became too irritating. His methods weren't suitable for recounting to polite company, but they were effective, so that was that.

          Thus this chaotic, raucous little lifestyle continued to stagger onward. 

*

          Zandik had become more introverted somewhere around his forties, but apparently that reticence applied only to outsiders. 

          Put six versions of the same man together, and whatever restraint he possessed evaporated rather quickly. According to 25, who rarely uttered more than a handful of words a day, 45's rate of speech was comparable to that of "a parrot hopped up on stimulants". 

          45 paid little attention to the assessment. After all, coming from someone like 25, who could scarcely be pried open enough to say half a sentence a day, anyone who spoke slightly more than necessary was bound to appear a chatterbox.

          Perhaps there was some truth to the notion that introverts engaged in a great deal of internal monologue. The difference was that Zandik had, through some questionable application of science and an even more questionable disregard for common sense, manifested those voices into distinct individuals. Thoughts that had once existed only inside his head had become a whole crowd.

          And they were noisy.

          Whenever the Segments gathered around a set of scans to discuss an experiment, their voices overlapped until the lab sounded less like a place of scientific inquiry and more like a marketplace at midday. Six heads would huddle together, arguing over results, interrupting one another, correcting observations that had been made by another version of themselves, and occasionally reaching entirely different conclusions despite possessing the exact same brain.

          It was rather comical. Like a flock of parrots talking at cross-purposes, except that this particular flock happened to possess identical plumage, identical voices, and the tendency to insult one another.

          Aside from a few minor annoyances, there wasn't much to complain about. Zandik let them do as they pleased. Barring the occasional lab explosion large enough to threaten the structural integrity of the building, everyone generally remained in his own workspace and minded his own business.

          They were all essentially the same person. They understood one another's habits, tempers, and contrarian impulses because those things were their own. There was no need to explain why someone wished not to be disturbed, why another had suddenly rearranged an entire workstation, or why Omega had apparently decided that a functional piece of equipment needed to be dismantled at three in the morning.

          Against all reasonable expectations, they managed to coexist in something resembling harmony. But if there was one thing that could be considered something of an eyesore, it was—

          "Zandik?"

          "Hm?"

          45 turned his head. A few meters away stood Pantalone. 

          Since 45 had no meetings that day, he was dressed in casual winter clothes rather than the Fatui coat. He had also been hunched over, in the middle of hauling a potted plant out of the frozen ground, and from behind the resemblance was, admittedly, rather convincing: the blue hair, the white padded jacket, the hunched back.

          "Ah. 45. My apologies. Have you seen Zandik anywhere?"

          Pantalone offered him an apologetic smile. Whatever momentary surprise had crossed his face vanished at once.

          45 straightened and turned fully toward him. He cradled the potted plant against his chest. A solitary, spindly stem protruded from the soil, so thin and stunted that it looked like it had survived purely out of spite. Behind him stretched a snow-white garden, its blackened tree trunks jutting from the snow like the remains of something long since burned to ash.

          Pantalone knew the lab and Zandik's usual haunts like the back of his hand. There was no reason for him to ask where the man might be. 

          It was therefore safe to assume that, had he realized from the beginning that the figure standing some distance away was merely Segment 45, he would have walked past without a word.

          The upper half of 45's face was hidden behind his mask. When he tilted his head to the side and smiled, the other couldn't see that the expression never quite reached his eyes.

          "He's in the west wing of the lab," 45 said. "I'm tied up with something right now, so could you head over there yourself?"

          There was no discernible emotion in his voice. Pantalone nodded politely, apparently unaware that anything was amiss or didn't care enough to notice, and turned to walk away. 45 watched him go. Then he looked down at the miserable plant in his arms. 

          ...Hah. No wonder Omega would rather spend the entire year roughing it on some distant continent than return here.

2.

          The case of Zandik and his Segments was a textbook example of an existential crisis.

          What happened when you woke one day and discovered that you were no longer entirely yourself? Were the memories in your head truly yours? Did your accomplishments still belong to you? What, for that matter, of the things you owned? At what point did possession become inheritance, and inheritance become theft?

          Questions like these had crossed 45's mind during the early days of his creation. It wasn't that he had gone looking for philosophical enlightenment. He barely had enough time to breathe beneath the mountain of work dumped upon him, much less sit around contemplating the metaphysics of personal identity. 

          Nevertheless, the thoughts kept appearing. They gnawed at him like termites inside a beam of wood, hollowing him out a little further each time he encountered some small distinction between his existence and Zandik's.

          Take the books, for instance. He could remember stacking them on the desk in his bedroom, intending to read them after a nap. He could remember the anticipation of it, the vague promise of an afternoon spent doing something he was interested in.

          Then he woke. The room where he had lived for years was no longer his, and the books waiting on the desk had already been read by Zandik decades earlier.

          Or take his favorite sweater, worn faithfully since he was forty-three and stretched almost beyond recognition by the time he was forty-five. It had become threadbare at the cuffs, misshapen around the collar, and so thoroughly his that he could identify it by touch alone.

          Zandik had thrown it away when he was forty-eight.

          Then there was the experiment involving a certain poison. He remembered reaching the second stage and leaving the progress notes unfinished, intending to return to them later.

          In reality, the experiment had already been completed through all four stages. Worse, Zandik had refined it into a third iteration.

*

          When 45 attended a Fatui meeting for the first time since his creation, he experienced a strange, almost surreal sensation.

          Decades had passed since the days when Zandik was forty-five. He had to grasp, piece by piece, the changes that had accumulated during the portion of the timeline he had never lived through, and the countless invisible threads newly attached to the position of Second Harbinger. 

          Even the people surrounding him had changed. The hierarchy beneath Zandik had shifted. Unfamiliar faces addressed him with the ease of people who had served under his command for years, speaking of matters he had no memory of and assuming a familiarity that felt almost like trespassing.

          Then Pantalone walked into the meeting hall. And—by all the Archons—he looked almost exactly as 45 remembered him. There were a few faint lines at the corners of his eyes, perhaps, so subtle they might have been imagined. Otherwise, he was unchanged.

          The relief that swept through 45 was almost embarrassing in its intensity. It was like finding an anchor while being dragged into the depths of a deep-sea vortex, fingers closing around it at the very last moment and clinging with all one's strength. Something solid and familiar. Everything else had been eroded by time. But his—

          His beloved hadn't changed. 

          Pantalone sat beside him throughout the meeting, just as he remembered. He spoke to him in that same familiar manner, smiled at the same moments, and occupied the same space at his side as though the years between them had failed to exist. For a brief, foolish moment, he nearly believed they hadn't.

          When the meeting finally concluded and most of the others had departed, he turned toward Pantalone and extended a hand.

          "Would you spare some of your precious time to go to the theater with me?"

          Deep down, he knew. This was no longer the era when Zandik was forty-five. And yet he remembered that they had planned to see a play and went for a walk after their next meeting. Pantalone had always made the most of their rare moments together, fitting small pieces of companionship into whatever gaps their duties left them.

          So surely he would—

          "Oh, what a shame. I have an appointment with Zandik tonight."

          Pantalone smiled at him.

          "So I shall have to turn down that offer."

          The smile was as beautiful as ever. For some reason, however, 45 felt as though the anchor he had seized in his final moments, the one he had clung to with the conviction that it would hold him fast, had turned out to be nothing more than a drifting iceberg.

          "...Very well, then."

          His hand fell to his side. Pantalone gave a faint nod, then turned and walked away. He remained where he was, standing alone in a corridor slowly being swallowed by dusk. The last light from the windows stretched across the floor in long, dying bands, and for a moment he could almost hear the distant sound of water somewhere.

          Ah.

          That particular date was one Pantalone had probably shared with Zandik years ago. Of course it was.

          No matter how many dates waited somewhere in the future, no matter how many evenings they might spend together, the person standing beside Pantalone would always be Zandik. Not—

          Not Segment 45.

*

          A person had been divided into two versions. One was the original; the other was a later self.

          Simple enough. But simplicity was a poor description of what it felt like to discover that your memories were only memories someone else had already lived, that the objects you thought of as yours had belonged to a different version of yourself, that the work you remembered beginning had already been completed by the man whose life you had inherited.

          The distinctions were small, but not any less unpleasant. It was rather like the difference between a man who had spent his entire life at the bottom of the sea and had long since become numb to the pressure, and one who had once stood beneath the sun at the summit of the world only to be cast into those same depths. The suffering might be equally absolute. The descent, however, would be remembered. 

          And perhaps that was why his misery had such a peculiar shape to it. Had he never existed as 'Zandik', had he been created with no memory of that life and no claim upon it, perhaps he could have accepted his circumstances as simply his own.

          But he had been Zandik. And so, when he realized that his lover belonged not to the man he was now, but to the original version of himself (the man from whom all of them had been divided), the distinction ceased to be hypothetical.

          It became wretchedly, excruciatingly real.

3.

          "Are you experimenting to see whether it is possible to die from overeating?"

          45 looked up from the plate of cake he was currently devouring. 

          Opposite him sat 65 with a cup of tea that had long since stopped steaming. Judging by the cold tea and the small graveyard of empty plates surrounding them, they had been sitting there for quite some time.

          He used his fork to sever another piece, roughly a third of what remained, and swallowed it in two bites before answering.

          "Why do you ask?"

          65 used the beak of his long, bird-like mask to gesture toward the stack of plates piled beside 45. The stack was already nearly as tall as his shoulder.

          "You have probably cleared out the entire dessert counter."

          "Hey, that's harsh," 45 stuffed the remainder of his cake into his mouth with the speed of a man attempting to conceal evidence. "When I went to get this plate, there was still some left, you know."

          "Left for...?"

          "For me," he stood. "It would be a disservice to the kitchen not to finish it all."

          "..."

          This time, rather than carrying the plates back individually, he stacked everything onto a single tray and hauled the mountain back to the table. The tray landed with a heavy clatter, while the air seemed to thicken with 65's silent judgment.

          45 ignored it. He began working his way through the desserts one by one. For a while, there was nothing but the clink of forks against porcelain. Then 65 said,

          "You cannot accept the fact that he loves only Zandik, and does not acknowledge the rest of us as 'Zandik', can you?"

          45's hand stopped. Very slowly, he lowered the fork onto the table. Then he gave a short, incredulous laugh.

          "Do you hear what you just said?"

          "If your objective were to determine your body's maximum tolerance for food, there would be considerably more efficient methods."

          65 lifted his teacup with one hand and gave it a tilt, watching the remaining liquid swirl against the porcelain.

          "So, in all likelihood, you are using food consumption—specifically, high-sugar foods—to stimulate dopamine and serotonin production as a coping mechanism for an unfavorable mental state. Though I doubt it'd have an effect, considering we aren't even human now."

          "..."

          "Zandik does not deviate from his routine without reason. I have seen 18 go through cycles of starving himself before subsequently binge-eating. 25 once remained awake for several days until he collapsed. Neither behavior was particularly productive."

          His teacup returned to its saucer with a click.

          "What good does it accomplish? How is one supposed to conduct research with an unstable body?"

          45 scoffed.

          "Then why do you think Pantalone is the cause?"

          "There must be a reason they engage in such pointless behavior. They were both fully functional when they were first created. These problems only appeared after they met him."

          65 interlaced his gloved hands together.

          "Inside or outside this laboratory, what, or who, else could possibly influence Zandik to such an extent?"

          The words were spoken with the same neutrality with which he might have discussed the results of an experiment. Perhaps it was a consequence of age. At sixty-five, Zandik had little patience left for euphemisms, circumlocutions, or the elaborate dance people performed when they were unwilling to name something obvious. He simply stated what the others preferred not to acknowledge, that even someone as seemingly impenetrable as Zandik could be altered by another person.

          Instead of feeling annoyed at having it so bluntly pointed out that he was distressed enough to eat himself into a stupor, 45 found himself intrigued by the stories of what had happened before he had been created.

          "What about Omega? What did he do?"

          "That, I'm not entirely sure. Zandik once vaguely mentioned that the guy disappeared for several months without answering any of his signals. When he finally returned, he looked…"

          He seemed to search for the exact wording.

          "Well, to quote Zandik: 'Like he'd taken diving lessons in Fontaine and then rolled around in the Sumeru desert.'"

          "Pfft—"

          45 burst out laughing. 

          Fortunately, the two of them were the only people in the dining hall. Otherwise, he would undoubtedly have been subjected to the sort of concerned stares usually reserved for people who had finally lost the last of their remaining sanity.

          "Oh—he actually said that—for Her Majesty the Tsaritsa—"

          65 spoke with the weary resignation of someone who had predicted this reaction several seconds in advance.

          "Get it out of your system. Then we can continue."

          "I refuse to believe he didn't secretly save a picture of Omega looking that wretched for blackmail material."

          45 laughed so hard that he had to thump his chest to keep himself from choking.

          "I'll have to ask him about it sometime."

          "..."

          "Hey," noticing the unusual silence, he narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Don't tell me you already asked Zandik."

          "I did."

          "And?"

          "He wouldn't give it up."

          "HAHAHAHA—"

          The manic laughter came rushing back.

          It was true. Age clearly had no bearing whatsoever on the depravity of a bastard like Zandik. Give him a sufficiently embarrassing photograph of someone, and apparently he would guard it with his life simply for the privilege of holding it over their head later.

          What a shame. 45 had hoped to find some dirt he could use against Omega.

          "Alright, alright."

          Still grinning, he removed his mask and rubbed at his face, which had begun to stiffen from laughing.

          "So what about you? How much did you suffer over our fickle lover?"

          "I don't have the energy to waste on that sort of thing like you lot do."

          Bullshit. 45 was Zandik too. Who exactly did 65 think he was fooling?

          "So no losing sleep? No wandering off into exile to wallow in misery?" he leaned forward, eyes gleaming. "Did you… sit around writing in a diary?"

          "...What do you take me for? A lovelorn maiden?"

          65 sounded offended.

          "Once things played out the way they did, I took some time to think it over. Then I accepted it."

          "Hm," 45 raised an eyebrow. "Refusing to spill the beans, are we?"

          He propped his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his interlaced fingers.

          "Fine, then. I'm sure I'll dig up just how pathetic you were someday."

          "..."

          65 was rendered speechless. He remained silent for a full minute before letting out a sharp sigh and picking up his teacup again.

          The conversation was rambling. Aimless, even. Yet, for some reason, it lifted 45's mood. Perhaps it was the realization that other versions of himself had gone through the same thing. There was something oddly comforting in that—a sort of misery-loves-company consolation, however pathetic the company might be. Apparently, age made no difference. If you were Zandik, that meant losing your heart to Pantalone. Oh, the irony…

          He picked up his fork and prodded the lava cake on his plate. The crust broke beneath the pressure, and warm chocolate began to ooze from its center, slowly spreading across the plate in dark, murky streaks.

          He stared down at it for a moment. Then, in a flat and indifferent voice, he said,

          "This feeling isn't pleasant at all."

          After half a beat, 65 replied,

          "Indeed."

4.

          People often said that it was better to tear a wound open and let it scab over than to leave it festering beneath the skin. Better to endure one sharp pang than a ceaseless, nagging ache. 

          Perhaps there was some truth to the saying. After having the ugly truth laid out so bluntly before him, 45 found himself strangely clearer-headed, like he had emerged from the far end of a long, pitch-black tunnel.

          If an obstacle was as immovable as a mountain, there was little one could do except accept its existence and find another way around it.

          It wasn't so different from how he had learned to live as a monster. He had accepted his expulsion from the village and the Akademiya, his rejection by his homeland, his exile to a foreign land. The sun would still set and rise again, no matter how he wished to tear the very sky apart. 

          There was no use clawing at what was unchangeable. His lover no longer saw him as 'Zandik'. That was something he would also have to accept.

          He had no other choice. What else was he supposed to do? Kill Zandik? Strut around in front of Pantalone like a peacock fanning its tail? Both sounded like gambles with the odds overwhelmingly stacked against him. The original was the original. No matter how many times artificial beings like the Segments were added together or multiplied, they could never match the place the original occupied in Pantalone's heart.

          It sounded bleak, but it was the truth. Still, if he looked at it from the brighter side, at least he had confirmation that he and Pantalone had remained together all these years, even after he had grown into an old man.

          Fine. He would lower his standards. It was probably better for his sanity. 

          As long as Pantalone loved Zandik, even if it was only the original Zandik and not the secondary one, that was negotiable—

          ...

          Who was he trying to fool here? He couldn't accept it.

          "Hahh..."

          He let out a long, wretched sigh and raked his fingers through his hair. Forget it. If he couldn't figure it out now, then he would stop thinking about it. Given enough time, his mind would sort itself out.

          Or, at the very least, perhaps it would stop making everything so irritating.

*

          "Why are we standing out here freezing our asses off?!"

          18 hissed through chattering teeth.

          Beside him, 25 said nothing, but his brows were furrowed so tightly they were practically merging into a single line. Clearly, he was just as unenthusiastic about standing outside in weather cold enough to keep even a dog indoors.

          "To stretch your limbs a bit. You two hole up in your room all day—you're practically growing mold. Come out and live like human beings for a change." 45 said cheerfully.

          In reality, that wasn't the reason at all. He was going stir-crazy from desk work, and during his rare moments of free time, the thoughts swirling around in his head made it impossible to accomplish anything productive. So, if he wanted to stop thinking, he needed to work his body until he was too exhausted and muddled to think at all.

          But doing it alone was boring as hell. Hence, he had barged into the two younger Segments' room and dragged them out into the backyard in this ball-freezing cold.

          "On the count of three, you rush forward and hold him down so I can bolt inside, deal?"

          "Why do I have to be the sacrificial lamb?"

          "Because you're older. Isn't it usually the case that the older one shoulders the greater responsibility?"

          "You only spout that kind of principle when it benefits you."

          "I can hear you two plotting from over here, you know."

          The two shut their mouths at once.

          18 had already taken a cautious step backward, but 25 immediately blocked his path by planting one leg behind 18's calf to prevent him from making a premature escape. If they were going down, they were going down together. He wasn't letting 18 pull some shitty stunt like that.

          Realizing the situation was clearly unfavorable, 18 immediately changed tactics.

          "What about 65, then? Shouldn't that fossilized old man stretch his bones a bit, too?"

          "He's busy working with Zandik today. And before you ask about Omega—no. If that guy were still somewhere within Snezhnaya's borders, I'd have dragged him out here already."

          "Tch."

          18 clicked his tongue. Seeing that there was no escape, 25 adjusted his glasses.

          "Whatever you plan to do, just make it quick."

          "That's the spirit!"

          45 clapped his hands together.

          "We're going to make snowmen."

          The two stared at him dumbfoundedly. Neither seemed to have fully processed what he had just said. 45, apparently deciding they hadn't heard him properly, elaborated.

          "Lots and lots of snowmen."

          "...Just fucking put me out of this miserable existence already."

          18's eyes rolled back like a dead fish. 25 looked like he was ready to lie down on the snow and wait for burial.

          "Come on. Get to it if you two want to be released early."

          45 gestured toward the massive mounds of snow that had accumulated across the yard after the recent snowfalls.

          18 scratched his head and groaned before dragging himself over to the nearest mound on the left. 25 went to the one on the right. Meanwhile, humming to himself, 45 picked a spot near the corridor leading back to the lab. He had chosen his position carefully: from there, he could intercept any brat who got the bright idea to make a run for it.

          "But why build snowmen?"

          18 picked up a large clump of snow, turning it over in his hands as he studied how it was supposed to be shaped. He might not have been doing this willingly, but it was in Zandik's nature to take any unfamiliar task seriously and figure out its mechanics.

          "The thing is, it doesn't snow in Sumeru, so as far as my memories go, I've never even touched the stuff. Did Zandik get interested in it after coming to Snezhnaya?"

          "Not by the point my memories cover." 25 called out.

          "Actually, even by the time we were forty-five, we still hadn't."

          18 and 25 both turned to look at him.

          "You mean to tell me that, despite living here for decades, Zandik went through half a lifetime without ever learning how to build a snowman?" 18 asked incredulously.

          45 shrugged.

          "That thing Snezhnayan children get bored of doing?"

          "Correct."

          "Damn," 18 blurted out. "That sounds pretty pathetic."

          "We are Zandik, you know. Saying that is basically insulting all of us Segments." 25 sighed wearily.

          "But it isn't wrong, is it?" 45 snickered. "Ostracized and shunned during childhood in Sumeru, and then, once we got here, having nothing better to our name than the title of Harbinger. Nothing we didn't already know, or care, though."

          He paused, apparently recalling something.

          "To quote a joke Pantalone once made while we were sitting in the public counseling room: 'If this were written as a book, it'd probably be a bestseller for three consecutive years. People love reading about miserable lives, after all.'"

          "...I have to admit, it does sound absolutely wretched," 25 said.

          18 grunted. Then the three of them turned their attention back to the snow in front of them. Or at least, tried to. Because after successfully producing a snowball that, if one squinted hard enough, could perhaps be considered vaguely spherical, 45 promptly lost interest and moved on to something considerably more entertaining.

          Namely, sneaking up behind 18 and stuffing a handful of snow down his collar.

          "What the hell—?!"

          18 shrieked like a slaughtered chicken. 45 doubled over, howling with laughter as 18 hopped frantically from one foot to the other, desperately trying to shake the snow out from beneath his shirt.

          "You—!"

          18 glared at him, pointing an accusing finger. He looked as if he was racking his brain for a string of truly colorful profanities, but profanity had apparently not been part of his vocabulary back in his school days. All he could produce were insults so tame that they barely qualified as insults at all.

          Frustrated, humiliated, and apparently unwilling to let the matter go, he abruptly bent down, packed a snowball with both hands, and hurled it straight at 45.

          "Oh? Someone's angry."

          45 nimbly sidestepped. The snowball merely grazed the hem of his coat and exploded harmlessly against the ground. Seeing that infuriatingly nonchalant grin, 18 immediately bent down to make another.

          "You stay right there—"

          45 ducked just in time as another snowball sailed past the spot where his head had been a moment ago. Now this was fun. They should have started a snowball fight from the beginning. Who needed a snowman?

          "Let's see if eighteen-year-old Zandik can take down forty-five."

          He darted a short distance away and began packing snow between his hands. The moment 18 realized what he was doing, he gave chase. 45 scooped up a handful of snow and hurled it over his shoulder. 18 twisted aside, narrowly avoiding it, then immediately launched another snowball in retaliation.

          "If I don't pelt you to death today, I'm not human—"

          "We aren't human anymore, though."

          "Fuck!"

          45 snorted. He sidestepped to avoid the next projectile, which flew past with enough force to punch a hole straight through him had it connected. But instead of the expected splat of a snowball striking the ground, there came a sharp—

          Thwack.

          Both men froze. 18's face went blank. 45 slowly turned around.

          And there stood 25. A considerable heap of snow was plastered across his face. Apparently, he had been attempting to sneak away while the other two were busy trying to murder each other with frozen precipitation.

          "..."

          "..."

          "..."

          25 slowly raised one hand and wiped the snow from his face. Then he removed his glasses and tucked them into his coat pocket. Very slowly, he turned toward 18, and then toward 45. Both of them unconsciously took a step backward.

          25 was a man of few words to begin with. At that particular moment, however, his silence was considerably more eloquent than speech. When a person like that snapped, there was generally only one possible outcome. The expression on his face could only be described as—

          Well.

          It was the face of a demon rising from the deepest pit of hell to collect a soul that had somehow managed to evade him until now.

          18 grabbed 45 by the arm and shouted,

          "Run, old man!!"

          "Brat, you go right, I'll go left!"

          With that, the two of them bolted.

*

          "My, it's not every day I see a sight like this."

          Zandik sounded genuinely surprised.

          He was standing in the common area of the laboratory, where the massive sofa in the corner—usually left to gather dust because no one ever had any reason to use it—was, for once, occupied. By quite a few people, at that.

          "Do you know why they all ended up out here?"

          He glanced at 65, who was standing beside him. The Segment absentmindedly twirled the cane in his hand for a moment before answering.

          "Before I came to the operating room to work with you, 45 asked if I wanted to join him for—his words—'a bit of a workout in the backyard'. Naturally, I declined. My schedule was already full."

          He paused.

          "It seems he proceeded with the plan anyway. With two other members."

          The two of them looked toward the sofa. It was truly quite a sight.

          45 was slumped against the backrest with his legs splayed wide, his head tilted so far back that only the sharp line of his jaw was visible. 18 was sprawled across the right side like a dead fish, his head resting on 45's thigh. On the other side, 25 had collapsed against 45's left arm, arms folded across his chest and eyes squeezed shut. All three of them were completely dead to the world.

          ...Well, at least they were now too exhausted to dwell on their heartbreaks.

          "Whatever this 'workout' actually entailed, it must have been rather draining, no?" 

          There was a faint note of amusement in Zandik's voice.

          "I suppose so."

          "You Segments are usually so cooped up in your room that seeing someone voluntarily come outside to exercise is actually a positive development," Zandik said. "If 45 asks you to join him again and it happens to clash with our scheduled work, just let me know. You may go with them."

          65 slowly turned his masked face toward him.

          "Are you attempting to determine how much physical strain my limbs can withstand before they give up on me?"

          "Not at all," Zandik sounded almost delighted. "You think the worst of me, honestly."

          With that, he reached into his coat and pulled out an imaging device, raising it toward the sofa.

          "It would be a waste not to preserve such a rare sight."

          "I am beginning to suspect that I may have let my guard down and allowed myself to be recorded looking less than presentable."

          "Hmm, what do you think?"

          "…On second thought, I would rather not know. Just make sure to send me a copy of the image."

          "Very well."

5.

          After that time during which he had been chased around until he was practically dying on the sofa afterward, 45 discovered that he actually found the whole thing exhilarating.

          More than exhilarating, really. It proved far more effective at keeping his mind off useless, intrusive thoughts than burying himself in experiments. So nowadays whenever he found himself with even a little free time, he would go pester the other Segments.

          18 would hiss and struggle as he tried futilely to keep 45 from barging into his room. 25 wouldn't bother opening the door, even gone so far as to install an extra lock. As for 65, he somehow seemed to have a perpetually packed schedule whenever 45 came calling.

          The result was usually the same: 18 and 25 would reluctantly team up to chase 45 around and pelt him with snowballs, since he refused to let either of them off the hook. Meanwhile, 65 would sit on the sidelines, watching the carnage unfold with about a dozen thick coats draped on him. Every so often, he would dodge a stray snowball and wonder, perhaps for the hundredth time, why his younger selves were making such complete fools of themselves.

          The sight of those two Segments, whose combined ages still didn't quite match 45's, chasing him down was, frankly, rather ridiculous. It looked like an attempt to swat a cockroach that refused to die, except this particular cockroach had godlike reflexes.

          45 was practically untouchable. He darted between snowdrifts, ducked beneath flying projectiles, and twisted out of the way with the sort of absurd agility that made one wonder whether all those years spent hunched over lab equipment had somehow been a clerical error.

          He had only ever been hit once. And that was because Pantalone happened to walk into the lab in the distance, causing his attention to wander for one fatal moment.

          "Lord have mercy" 

          He breathed. Damn. Pantalone looked absolutely divine today. He wanted to admire up close that masterpiece of a—

          Thwack!

          A snowball struck him squarely in the face just before his thoughts turned, well, impure.

          "He actually got hit!" 18 shouted, sounding like he had just witnessed a miracle. "25, quick! Surround him!"

          In 45's defense, Pantalone was dressed magnificently that day. He looked as though he had just returned from some extravagant party. Because good heavens he had even slicked his hair back. And with 45's hawk-like vision, he could make out every little detail from across the distance. Even the tiny lace patterns adorning the hem of the other's outfit.

          Taking a snowball to the face was worth it.

*

          Aside from tormenting his other iterations, he also dabbled in botanical research.

          Remember that scrawny plant he had been carrying around in the garden? The very one that had caused Pantalone to mistake him for Zandik? That one.

          Omega had hauled it back from some godforsaken corner of the continent because it was supposedly a newly crossbred variety capable of surviving harsh climates. Being the contrarian that he was, he had brought it back for the sole purpose of finding out whether that claim actually held any water, and to rub it in its creator's face if it didn't.

          But Omega rarely spent more than a month a year in the lab, so as was often the case with things that caught his interest, he eventually lost patience and left the poor plant to fend for itself.

          Somehow, it survived. The miserable thing had clung stubbornly to existence, too spiteful to die. 45 found its tenacity interesting, so he rescued it from the garden and brought it back to his own section of the experiment room to see what he could make of it.

          His first discovery was that Snezhnaya's fertilizer industry was an absolute disaster. Hardly surprising, really. In a ball-freezing wasteland where damn near nothing could grow, there was apparently little incentive to develop a thriving agricultural industry.

          The next time Omega happened to show his face around, 45 cornered him.

          "Next time you're out, haul back a few bags of high-quality fertilizer for me."

          "? Planning to simulate a new habitat for Irminsul in case we manage to swipe it?"

          "Just a standard experiment. Though, that's an interesting idea."

          He offered no further explanation, and Omega wasn't curious enough to ask. Long story short, the guy did bring back the requested supplies. He couldn't, however, resist adding, 

          "Do I look like a delivery guy to you?"

          "And I'm a typewriter," 45 replied, holding up a document densely covered in text. "Want to swap roles?"

          Omega was out of the door in one second.

          Even after he heaped a generous amount of manure around its roots, the plant only looked marginally less pathetic. Not a single new shoot appeared. He considered whipping up some sort of growth stimulant and injecting the damn thing directly, just to see what would happen, but then he decided he wasn't interested enough to go to that much trouble. Instead, he placed the plant inside a warm-climate simulation chamber and watered it every now and then. It was hardly an ideal research protocol, but it was enough to keep the thing alive.

          Still, it didn't feel like enough.

          He stared at the stubborn little plant through the glass.

          He needed something else to occupy his hands. Something else to mess around with.

*

          "What do we have here?"

          He leaned around Zandik to get a better look.

          A tiny kid was clinging to the hem of Zandik's coat, staring back at him with the wary curiosity of a creature that had just noticed it was being watched. His red eyes held a faintly lost, bewildered look.

          "This is Segment 8," Zandik said, patting the child on the back before nudging him a little farther forward. "Say hello to your future self."

          He looked up at Zandik, then back at 45. By then, 45 had already crouched down to his eye level, tilting his head with keen interest.

          "…Hello?"

          45's grin widened. Until it stretched almost from ear to ear, exposing a row of sharp teeth that gleamed rather ominously in the light, like a shark that had just spotted its prey drifting helplessly into its jaws.

          "Such good manners. Care to guess which Segment I am?"

          Talk about having a meal served to him on a silver platter.

6.

          Teasing Segment 8 was incredibly entertaining.

          The kid was so small. A tiny little thing who needed two or three steps just to match one of 45's strides. 45 could snatch him up without breaking a sweat. Even when 8 struggled, his resistance amounted to little more than a few feeble swats, nothing like 18, who would bite at the slightest opening, or 25, who could land a punch if you weren't paying attention.

          Besides, the others were essentially adults. Meanwhile, 8 was still a child, and would remain one forever. He would never have the opportunity to grow into anything else. So although he was a Zandik, his mind had remained comparatively simple and immature. Tease him a little and he would be left completely at a loss. He wasn't permitted to participate in Zandik's more advanced experiments, either, which meant he had far more free time than the other Segments.

          In other words, he was practically tailor-made for 45 to pester.

          At first, it wasn't surprising that 8 kept his distance from the others, and from Zandik himself. He would clutch his notebook and pen, find some quiet corner, and sit there taking meticulous observation notes, looking exactly like Zandik himself had as a child in that little village back in Sumeru. He watched everything with wide, unblinking eyes, never asking for anything. Only occasionally would he approach them with some practical question, like: "Where is the library?", "Can I use these scissors?", "Am I allowed in this room?". And then he would disappear again.

          To an ordinary person, a child like that would have been deeply, almost chillingly strange. But everyone here was a Zandik, so by their standards, this was just another day. They made sure 8 had his own room, food, clothes, and enough things to occupy himself with, then went their separate ways.

          If things had continued like that, perhaps another little Zandik would have grown up—or rather, not grown up—living exactly as the original had during his childhood. But 45 kept seeking the kid out and dragging him along to play pranks on the other Segments. Other times, he would sit processing paperwork while 8 occupied the desk beside him, his short little legs dangling above the floor as he scribbled and sketched in his notebook. 45 even developed the habit of carrying candy around, just in case he needed a bribe. Or, as he preferred to call it, a highly effective negotiation tool.

          Little by little, 8, who had once responded to 45's endless monologues with nothing more than a few clipped words, began to talk more. He sounded like a tiny old man. 45 found this hilarious rather than strange.

          One day, he looked down and realized that 8 was holding his hand while they walked. At first, the kid had always kept a careful distance between them. Now he would reach out and take 45's hand whenever the other offered it. The sight suddenly reminded him of something 18 had once blurted out, and he couldn't help but snickered. 8 looked up at him, puzzled.

          Hah. Zandik really was pathetic.

          Give him the tiniest taste of sweetness, and he'd already crawled right out of his shell.

*

          "Why do you have a plant here?"

          45 looked up from the stack of files he had been reading.

          8, who had trotted into the experiment room after him earlier, was now standing beside the shelf where the plant chamber sat. His tiny hands were pressed against the glass, feeling the warmth radiating from within.

          "Oh, that? It's under observation. That's a new hybrid supposedly bred to withstand harsh weather, though I haven't seen much progress so far. It's only gotten a little greener."

          He rose from his chair and walked over. 8 remained absorbed in the stunted plant inside the chamber, studying its spindly, leafless branches. Bathed in the chamber's golden light, it almost seemed to breathe.

          "Do you want to study it yourself?"

          8 looked up at him.

          "Why?"

          "I don't have time for it," 45 shrugged. "If you're interested, you can experiment with it. Otherwise, I wasn't planning to touch it again anyway."

          8 turned back to the plant, considering the offer.

          "Alright."

          "Excellent," 45 patted him on the head. "I'll get you the old file with my notes on the progress so far, and a new folder for you to keep your own records in. This shall be your first project here in the lab."

*

          From then on, whenever 45 was busy mixing solutions at the counter, 8 would scurry from the sink to fill a jug with water, then hurry back to the plant chamber to water the specimen.

          He even earnestly took out a tape measure to check the length of its stem and branches, carefully recording every change. Once, 45 happened to stand behind him and glance over his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of a wobbly, lopsided sketch of the plant before 8 immediately snapped the folder shut and glared at him, making 45 snickered.

          "They say talking to plants helps them grow faster. Why don't you give it a try?"

          He had teased the kid like that once. 8 behaved as though he hadn't heard a word. Yet every now and then, when he thought 45 wasn't paying attention, 45 would hear him murmuring to the plant. 

          45 nearly bit his tongue trying not to laugh. Oh, my. The kid was just too gullible.

          And, as it turned out, very little happened in the lab without Zandik knowing about it. Because some time later, while the two of them were conducting joint research, Zandik asked without looking up,

          "Has Segment 8 gotten used to the conditions here yet?"

          45 turned to him. Zandik was hunched over the table, flipping through a stack of files.

          "By my assessment, yes."

          "I see."

          Silence settled between them again. 45 returned his attention to the test subject on the operating table, carefully making an incision. Then Zandik's voice sounded once more.

          "That child seems to be making good progress with you by his side, and vice versa, wouldn't you say?"

          The scalpel in 45's hand halted.

          "Don't tell me you're feeling sentimental."

          "Nonsense," Zandik gave a hoarse laugh. "That's merely an objective assessment from an outsider. Surely you realize you've changed, too. You just haven't accepted it yet."

          Segments weren't capable of change. "Say whatever you want."

*

          "What are you doing here at this hour?"

          45 shut the laboratory entrance gate behind him. 8, who had been loitering nearby, jumped at the sound of his voice and turned to stare at him with wide eyes.

          "It's the middle of the night," he brushed the snow from his Fatui cloak, his voice flat. "Standing around here like that, were you trying to spook someone?"

          He was in a foul mood tonight.

          That morning, during an internal meeting with Zandik's subordinates, he had been forced to sit through a series of proposals of such indescribable stupidity that he had briefly questioned whether killing everyone in the room would be worth the paperwork afterward. Then, at the evening Harbinger meeting, Pantalone had asked what Zandik had been busy with lately, and why he hadn't been answering Pantalone's signals.

          Tch. Pantalone still called him 'Dottore'. He still sat beside him during meetings. Everything looked perfectly normal, as though he really were the original. But that was merely the body. Inside it was nothing but Zandik, Zandik, Zandik.

          The envy made his teeth ache. Damn it all. So much time had passed, and he still couldn't stomach the truth that Pantalone loved only the original. Worse, he had nowhere to put all that frustration. If anyone else had dared irritate him this badly, they would have been a corpse by now. But this was his lover (was it?) and his own original self. The gods truly seemed determined not to let him live a single day without giving him some new reason to want to tear the sky apart.

          "Go back to your room."

          He strode past 8. He really wasn't in the mood for babysitting tonight. The fact that he hadn't said anything cutting was already an act of considerable generosity.

          "Wait!"

          Something tugged weakly at the back of his cloak. The pull was barely enough to startle him, yet, for some reason, he stopped.

          "Um—ah—"

          8 seemed surprised that he had actually managed to halt the other's steps. He stammered for a moment before finally speaking, his voice scarcely louder than a mosquito's buzz.

          "The plant… it sprouted a bud today. I was waiting here at this hour to… um, tell you about it."

          "…"

          From behind him, 8 couldn't see the expression on 45's face. Flustered, he twisted the corner of the cloak he was holding. Then, startled by his own boldness, he quickly smoothed the fabric again so he wouldn't wrinkle it.

          "But if you're tired, then… tomorrow would be fine, too…"

          He lowered his head and let go. A moment later, 45 sighed. He ruffled his hair as if trying to shake his irritation loose, then turned around and scooped 8 into his arms.

          "…!"

          The world abruptly tilted before 8's eyes. He hurriedly wrapped his tiny arms around 45's neck to steady himself.

          "I don't know what to do with you, honestly…"

          45 muttered under his breath as he adjusted his hold and began striding down the hallway toward the experiment room.

          "Very well, then. We need to observe this new development in the project as soon as possible."

          He had intended to lock himself in the dissection room until morning, as he often did whenever the headache-inducing dynamic between Pantalone, Zandik, and himself became too much to tolerate. Clearly, that plan was out the window now.

          He patted 8 lightly on the back.

          "So, little scholar, tell me. What other new things did you discover today?"

          "Ah, well…"

7.

          Perhaps, in addition to being fated to live his life as a monster, Zandik had been saddled with yet another curse.

          It was one thing for the older Segments to have once been romantically involved with Pantalone. But the fact that the two youngsters, 18 and 25, were dabbling in such pathetic, unrequited love at stages of their lives when they shouldn't even have met Pantalone yet…

          Well. 45 could only conclude that this was a curse. It was as if some malicious deity had painstakingly engineered a weakness specifically for Zandik, ensuring that not a single stage of his life could remain invulnerable.

          So in hindsight, he should have realized it much earlier. He had been organizing files when his hand accidentally knocked 8's notebook off the desk. The kid was usually glued to that thing, and 45 had never been curious enough to snoop through it. So when it fell open to a page covered in a drawing, he had merely assumed it was another sketch of the plant and reached down to pick it up.

          Then he looked closer. Something about the drawing seemed… off. It depicted a face and shoulders. The lines were crude, and the overall result was rather ugly. Yet the artist had taken great care with certain details: the irises had been colored purple, the hair black, the mouth curved into a smile. And one lock of purple hair had been tucked behind one ear.

          "…You've got to be kidding me."

          Damn it. 

          When, exactly, had his brat managed to see Pantalone while he himself had been buried in work?

*

          "Come on. There's no point dwelling on things like this."

          He gave 8's chubby cheek a pinch. When the other remained unresponsive, the rims of his eyes reddening and brimming like a little rabbit's, 45 could only give a wry smile before gathering him into his arms. 

          8 immediately buried his face in the crook of the man's neck, wrapping his arms tightly around it. 45 said nothing about the tremors running through those small arms.

          He told 8 the truth about Pantalone and Zandik today. That Pantalone loved only the original, and only the original. That Segments like them, despite being derived from that same source, had no place in his eyes.

          There was no point in indulging a delusion. Better to tear the illusion away entirely than let it fester. Still, he hadn't expected the truth to affect the kid this much. But 8 was a Zandik, too, and among the certainties 45 possessed about himself was the knowledge that he could claw his way back from even the shittiest of situations.

          He paced aimlessly through the garden. He had taken off his mask while speaking to 8 earlier, and the wind had numbed his exposed face with cold. He couldn't be bothered to put it back on. There was no one else around to see them, anyway.

          "..."

          After a while, he felt movement from the small bundle lying in his arms. The grip around his neck loosened. Slowly, 8 straightened and lifted his head to look at him.

          Snowflakes had settled in 45's hair, giving it the appearance of salt-and-pepper. A few clung to his long eyelashes, making them look almost like the wings of a bird caught in flight. Beneath them sat pupils red as blood, yet colder than the snow itself. His high-bridged nose rose above thin lips pressed into a straight line.

          Perhaps this was the first time 8 had ever seen himself at forty-five so fully, without a mask to obscure the face.

          "...Is this how I looked at the age when Pantalone loved 'me' the most?"

          He raised a tiny hand and touched the other's cheek. Bewilderment twisted across his small face, crumpling it into an expression of utter misery.

          "When we were forty-five, our romance with him was certainly going smoothly," 45 smiled faintly. "But loved the most? That, I'm not so sure about."

          Back when he was still 'Zandik', by the time he reached forty-five, the two of them were happy together. But that certainty had shattered the moment he became merely one Segment among many. He had stood on the sidelines and watched the original, now a stooped man, being supported by Pantalone, and only then had he looked around and understood.

          Ah.

          So every single Segment had once believed that their particular version was the one Pantalone loved most.

          It was absurd, really. The Segments had been created to preserve a particular moment in Zandik's life. How, then, could they possibly conceive of any existence beyond their own? How could the forty-five-year-old Zandik have imagined what his relationship with Pantalone would look like in the years to come? He knew only that his lover would smile indulgently whenever he crept up from behind and swept him into an embrace. It had never occurred to him that, one day, those same arms would be the ones Pantalone helped steady as age bent his back and weakened his limbs. 

          How could he have imagined such a thing? Back when he was still merely Pantalone's 'Zandik', how could he have conceived that, if every Segment were placed on one side of the scales and the original on the other, Pantalone would invariably choose the latter? 

          That, in the end, the version he loved most wasn't any particular Segment, but the original alone?

          Foolish child. 8 couldn't fathom how Pantalone might love Zandik, so he had taken the closest, most tangible thing he could find—Segment 45—and made him the measure of that love. He had looked upon this face and tried to imagine a future in which he, too, might be loved the same way.

          Yet perhaps he had understood the answer hidden in 45's ambiguous words. Perhaps he had caught the truth beneath that smile, that it was the original whom Pantalone loved best. Whatever the case, he fell silent, lowering his head until it rested against 45's shoulder.

          "You've never played in the snow before, have you?" 45 asked after a while. "I have some free time today. Let's go round up the others."

*

          But it was unavoidable. In the end, 8 had to go through that period of shock.

          The kid shut himself in his room, refusing to come out or even eat. 45 only learned about it after returning from a short business trip, by which point the situation had somehow already been handled.

          65 would occasionally seek the kid out and take him for a walk, if only to get him out of the room for a while. 25 helped him make sense of books that were too difficult for him. The biggest surprise, however, was 18. That brat would actually goad 8 into eating whenever he tried to skip a meal, if only to make sure 18 himself wouldn't have to snatch the food straight out of his mouth. Zandik had probably assigned 18 the task of checking on 8 in the first place, but 18 had apparently decided to extend the assignment of his own accord.

          It was a rare and magnificent display of collective effort. 45 never would have thought he would ever witness such a peculiar scene. Once the initial surprise wore off, he rolled up his sleeves and joined in.

          He would scoop the kid up and spin him around, knowing full well that, as a Segment, 8 no longer suffered from motion sickness, and wouldn't put him down until his eyes were practically spinning in dizzying spirals. He bought 8 little odds and ends whenever he happened to see something amusing, and whenever he returned from a meeting, he would whisk the kid away for a nap. After all, if one was prone to useless thoughts, then a good sleep was probably the best cure.

          At first, 8 was confused. He couldn't fathom what motivated these sudden acts, nor why 45 seemed to take such delight in tormenting him one moment and fussing over him the next. Eventually, however, he grew accustomed to 45's unpredictable nature. So accustomed, in fact, that whenever he saw 45 wearing his Fatui cloak, he would immediately crawl into the man's lap and settle down for a nap.

          Which was why, on one particular occasion, 45 was sitting with his legs crossed and reading a report when 8 suddenly came rushing into the room with a pale face.

          "Did you go to the Harbinger meeting this morning?!"

          "? No. It was Omega's turn today. I've been sitting right here all morning."

          At that, 8's face went completely blank.

          "Wait," 45 straightened in his chair. "Don't tell me you mistook him for me and climbed into his lap to sleep."

          "..."

          "Oh, you've got to be kidding me—HAHAHAHA!"

          It all made perfect sense. Omega had presumably returned from the meeting and laid down on the sofa to rest. Still wearing his Fatui cloak, he had looked close enough to 45 from a distance that 8 had apparently mistaken him for the wrong Segment, snuggled straight into his arms, and gone to sleep. Given Omega's personality, it was frankly astonishing that he had allowed 8 to sleep through the entire thing instead of shaking him off.

          8's face fell as 45 laughed at him. He was already beginning to turn away in a huff when 45 reached out and pulled him back, still snickering.

          "So, how did you realize it was Omega and not me?"

          8 puffed out his cheeks. He looked 45 straight in the eye and answered with utmost seriousness,

          "Because lying on you is more comfortable. Omega is all sharp angles. I woke up feeling sore all over."

          "...Are you calling me fat?"

          45 looked scandalized.

          "I'm not fat! Pantalone calls me 'prosperous'!"

          "Mmhmm."

          "Don't you 'mhm' me! Unbelievable—"

          Now the lot of them were far too busy bickering with one another to spare much thought for their own ill-fated romances anymore.

8.

          The plant 8 had been tending to was now putting out new buds, though each would wither before it bloom.

          Compared to its initial stunted state, its stem and branches had grown considerably. 45 had teased that perhaps it was growing so quickly because 8 diligently talked to it, a joke that earned him an entire day of the kid's sulking.

          Time slipped by in a blur. Through those hazy months and years, Pantalone drifted past him like a stranger, someone with whom he had once shared a pot of tea and a handful of stories, yet who had now become so distant that all they could offer each other was a brief greeting. 

          He watched, from the closest possible vantage point, the love that was supposed to have been his own. Pantalone took Zandik's hand and adjusted the umbrella, which had begun tilting toward him, back into its proper position. He told Zandik that he was getting on in years now, and that he would fall ill if he stayed out in the rain. In his own youth, 45 had never heard words like those. 

          He stood surrounded by cold and wet snow, and the tenderness Pantalone showed him made something inside him feel as if it were splintering. He watched the two of them disappear into the rain, walking away together through a scattering of sorrows that seemed to have no end, and a wave of sentimentality washed over him. He found himself thinking, absurdly, that Pantalone was to blame for leaving him in such a state.

          The Pantalone preserved in his memory had been only just past thirty. The man before him had lived more than twice that long. He had ruthlessly traversed an immense stretch of time, and the person 45 remembered was long gone, leaving him behind in the rain. The empty space in his memory, where stories of all those unlived years should have been, could never be filled. Pantalone, too, had forgotten much of the past. They stood at different points along the river of time, and Pantalone would continue drifting ever onward, while he remained forever rooted in place. Yet 45 stubbornly clung to his love for him. It was like shattering a glass of wine that had soured into poison, then drinking it anyway, swallowing the liquid together with the jagged shards.

          He watched as 8 rose onto his tiptoes to water the plant. Under 8's care, the buds had grown plump and healthy. 45 could no longer even remember what the plant had looked like in its original, sickly state. Such was the cold indifference of human nature. One traveled a long road, only to turn back one day and find that one could no longer remember exactly how the journey had been made. Would there ever come a day when Pantalone looked back upon those years and saw the Segments as someone he had once loved, or perhaps never loved at all?

          The answer eventually struck him like a gunshot heralding the end. One day, just as the first flower opened from its bud, Zandik passed away.

*

          Pantalone seemed to have died alongside Zandik.

          Whenever their paths crossed during meetings, he would gaze at 45 with hollow eyes. Outwardly, he remained the picture-perfect Regrator, immaculate as ever; yet to 45, he looked like nothing more than a beautiful doll from which someone had forgotten to put a soul back.

          Pantalone began sending messengers to handle their communications, insisting that all matters be conducted in writing. A decision dressed up in such courteous, flowery language that it was, for all intents and purposes, a ban on face-to-face contact. Much like the tale of the Tsaritsa who had sealed away her own heart, it seemed that those who fell in love beneath her command were destined to suffer a similar kind of incompleteness.

          From that day onward, Pantalone became a statue carved from eternal ice. The only person who could have broken the curse was dead, even so, 45 believed this was how things were meant to be. It was only after Zandik's death that Pantalone finally understood that the Segments were, in fact, 'Zandik' too. If his current state was the price of that realization, then it was a price worth paying.

          But reason and emotion were two entirely different things. His mind understood that Zandik's death had paved the way for them. His heart, however, writhed in ceaseless agony at Pantalone's avoidance. To go from being treated like a stranger to being treated as if he were invisible… 

          It was nothing less than utmost misery.

*

          Perhaps 18 and 25 had breathed a sigh of relief as 45 no longer came barging into their rooms to drag them outside for snowball fights. 65 no longer had to bundle himself up in layer upon layer of coats just to sit nearby and watch them. And 8 no longer needed to glance over his shoulder every few minutes, wary that 45 might sneak up behind him and startle him.

          They still shared the same lab, yet lived like lodgers who happened to occupy the same building and never crossed paths. Everyone remained shut away in their own rooms. 45 buried himself from morning until well past midnight in the paperwork he so detested. On some nights, he would encounter Omega in the hallway, returning from somewhere or other, and the two would merely exchange a glance before continuing on their separate ways.

          Their anguish was invisible, and difficult even to comprehend. After all, they had never held a place in Pantalone's heart. In that sense, there had been nothing for them to lose. Yet now, Pantalone wouldn't even deign to look at them, and they came to understand that there were depths of despair even lower than the place where they had already stood.

          What was there left to salvage? They had never even managed to set foot through the door, let alone leave their mark upon the room beyond it. Zandik had never known how to give up, yet this situation had rendered their brilliant minds utterly helpless.

          Surprisingly, 8 seemed determined to... check on them? During the day, he bustled back and forth between 18, 25, and 65's place. But his evenings belonged solely to 45. He would lug a stack of books over to 45's room, climb onto the bed, and demand a bedtime story—a thing that had never existed between them before. He would eventually nod off, one eye squeezed shut, yet his little hand would remain clamped tightly around 45's shirt, as if determined to prevent him from returning to his desk and working until dawn. It would have been easy to pry those tiny fingers loose. But in the end 45 always yielded. He would turn off the lights and lie down beside the kid.

          8 would also drag him over to inspect the plant whenever he caught 45 staring blankly at the Immortality Elixir vials. The thing had become covered in tiny white blossoms, and 8's barely concealed pride in the success of his very first project never failed to make 45 laugh. On the late nights when 45 returned with blood staining his clothes, 8 would stare at him with a pale, frightened face. Yet he would still approach, trembling as he took 45's gloved, blood-smeared hand and quietly led him away to wash the gore from it.

          A pitiful child. He had seen the monster his future self would become, yet had no one else to cling to except that very monster. Would he come to hate what he was destined to become, just as Zandik had spent his entire life hating himself?

          Outside, the snowstorm raged like an avalanche. 45's body was as cold as the night itself. The window frame shrieked beneath the wind, the panes rattling in their casings. The hallway was pitch-black as 8 guided him step by step toward his room, leading him through the darkness as if 45 was blind. 

          That night, 8 lay with his back turned to him. In the darkness, he asked, 

          "Can you tell me the story of what happened from the time we were nine until we became forty-five?"

          If 45 spoke, the crushing weight of those years would descend upon his shoulders once more; the resentment, the humiliation, the pain of a childhood spent clawing its way toward adulthood. Yet he said it anyway,

          "What do you want to hear first?"

          He wrapped his arms around 8 and drew the small head against his chest, right over the place where his artificial heart beat. In that instant, he felt a sudden pang of envy. Envy that this child had been accepted by his ruined, desolate heart, despite the fact that they had both originated from the very same person. It was the kind of acceptance Zandik had never known as a child. The very thing he had spent his entire life chasing, only to find a measure of solace in Pantalone. And now, even that anchor is gone.

          He looked down at the face of his younger self, those eyes bright and clear as they rested against his chest. There was no wariness nor loathing in them. 8 evoked a strange sensation in him, like the unexpected strains of a long-forgotten song from Sumeru drifting back through the years.

          He smiled and began to tell their story. As he spoke, emotions dark and ugly as iron seemed to seep slowly through his body, leaving behind a bitter, acrid taste.

          Z̶a̶n̶d̶i̶k̶ He was truly pathetic.

9.

          The record player who has been his companion since the moment of his creation suddenly skipped a beat during the final track. Pantalone had been brought to their lab unconscious. Ever since Zandik's death, he had been living as if his own life held no weight.

          It had been a long while since the Segments had all gathered like this, yet now they had crowded around his bedside, watching over him and checking his condition. 8 climbed onto the bed to wipe his face, startling him awake. Pantalone immediately turned his face into the pillow, like he could avoid them just by refusing to look up.

          45 imagined he wasn't the only one who wanted to seize Pantalone by the shoulders and shake him like a caged beast. Instead, all he did was massage Pantalone's back, stiff as stone from too many days spent hunched over a desk. The others busied themselves with whatever they could find to do: holding his hand, adjusting his IV lines, checking his temperature. 8 sat rigidly, his face contorted with sorrow. 45 pulled him into his arms and turned his face against his chest.

          After that day, things took an absurd turn.

          Pantalone no longer treated them as if they were invisible air. It wasn't quite a return to the 'stranger' dynamic he had maintained while Zandik was alive, but at least there was now a crack in the wall. An opening through which they might squeeze themselves.

          And so they began studying ways to widen it, to eventually secure a legitimate route back into Pantalone's residence. And, more importantly, back into his life. And because Zandik was apparently incapable of doing anything the normal way, the entire group eventually gathered for a meeting. 

          Omega stood before a blackboard, sketching out an elaborate analytical chart. Above it, in enormous letters, was the heading: <Seminar: Revitalizing the partnership with Pantalone>

          "...Three days ago, Pantalone held his gaze on me for five seconds longer than the previous occasion. Based on this data, I interpret it as an upward trend—"

          "But the other day, he looked at me without nodding. If we cross-reference that with the data you just provided—"

          "At yesterday's meeting, he sat slightly closer to me. His smile was also approximately one fraction wider. Based on my observations—"

          "...Is this a cult?"

          8 stared blankly at them. 

          He watched Omega hammer away at the board while 18 and 45 argued so heatedly with him that it looked as if the three were about to come to blows. Meanwhile, 25 and 65 scribbled furiously across their papers, looking for all the world like they were racing to finish a eulogy before their final breath.

          Hearing the words, 45 slowly turned toward him. He stood motionless as a statue for nearly a minute. For that brief, glorious moment, 8 genuinely thought he was thinking about it. Perhaps someone would finally realize how utterly ridiculous this had become and put an end to these pointless meetings.

          Then 45 slammed his hand onto the table.

          "So what if it's a cult? Sign me up!"

*

          Perhaps unable to bear being dragged into yet another meeting by the others, 8 finally took matters into his own hands. All by himself.

          The kid disappeared one afternoon, only to return to the lab announcing that he had successfully secured Pantalone's permission for them to resume submitting their paperwork directly to his office. His hair was a wind-tossed bird's nest like he had sprinted all the way back, and his little face wore an expression of sheer disbelief.

          The entire group stared blankly at him. They had held countless meetings by then (their tally had crept into the double digits), yet all those elaborate discussions had achieved less than what the kid had accomplished with a single, straightforward inquiry. Suddenly, all those years of research felt... well. Utterly futile.

          45 immediately scooped the kid into his arms and burst into laughter. A win was a win. The method hardly mattered.

          Ah. Perhaps that old man Zandik really had created Segment 8 with precisely this sort of situation in mind.

*

          After that, the situation gradually began to turn for the better.

          In fact, it was going damn well. They got to see Pantalone frequently. They got to speak with him, sometimes even allowing their conversations to drift into topics unrelated to work. Most of the time, it was the Segments who did the talking, but 45 was certain that, sooner or later, Pantalone would respond. He wasn't made of stone. And even if he were made of ice, 45 would just bring a heater and melt him down completely.

          In short, the entire group of Segments had now joined forces to execute Phase Two: getting closer to Pantalone.

          When Pantalone was in a decent mood, he would respond to whatever non-work topic they brought up. When he was in a bad mood... Well, they had better disappear quickly. 8 might receive a little leniency, but the older Segments knew better than to test their luck. 

          But this wasn't merely idle conversation. The purpose of getting closer to him was to pave the way for Phase Three: taking over the role of monitoring Pantalone's health, the position Zandik had once monopolized.

          45 once felt that it was a terrible waste of a life. But Zandik was dead, and his death had left that prime position beside Pantalone vacant, so 45 quickly swept those unnecessary thoughts aside. The dead were dead. There was no point dwelling on them.

          However, at their current pace, the lot of them combined had probably achieved only one-fifth of their objective. Progress was agonizingly slow.

          For months, their interactions with Pantalone remained stubbornly stagnant. He would speak with them, but never allowed any conversation to go deep enough for him to truly acknowledge them. It reached the point where 45 would sometimes end up hugging 8 and muttering about how heartless their lover was, grinding his chin against the top of the kid's head until 8 squirmed in his arms like an inchworm, trying to escape.

          Then, as if the heavens themselves had grown too irritated with the spectacle to watch any longer, they finally took pity on them. On the anniversary of Zandik's death, Pantalone was delivered (unconscious once again) straight to their door. He was delirious with fever. So delirious, in fact, that he mistook Omega for Zandik and, in his hazy state, agreed to let them take turns monitoring his health each day. 8 didn't seem to realize that Pantalone was seeing Zandik rather than the Segments. Perhaps that was more merciful.

          Just like that, their plan skipped straight from Phase Two to Phase Three. A win was a win, but winning like this truly left a bitter taste in his mouth.

*

          Pantalone remained reticent whenever he was around the Segments. Even when 45 visited his office for a routine health check, he would offer a polite word of thanks and nothing more.

          That silence was harder to decipher than any display of hostility. Still, 45 persisted, filling the quiet with conversations that were, more often than not, little more than monologues.

          One day, when he arrived to deliver a fresh batch of the Immortality Elixir, he noticed that the previous supply remained completely untouched.

          "Pantalone, why haven't you taken them?"

          Pantalone merely glanced at him before turning his attention back to his teacup. Realizing there was no hope of prying a proper answer from the stubborn man, 45 picked up one of the vials and walked over, placing it directly on the table before him.

          "You need to take one. The last batch I brought was enough for a month, yet you haven't touched a single dose."

          Which meant Pantalone had simply allowed another month of his dwindling lifespan to slip away. Did he no longer wish to live? 

          Knowing that 45 would not budge from his side until he took the elixir, Pantalone finally set down his teacup and picked up the vial. He held it at eye level. Under the light, the blue liquid shimmered with an almost blinding intensity.

          "Which part of Zandik did you and the others extract this from?"

          "...What?"

          "I want to know what I'm putting into my body."

          There was unmistakable bitterness in Pantalone's voice. Clearly, his mental state had deteriorated again. The research project for an antidepressant would have to be fast-tracked. 

          45 suppressed a sigh. Reasoning with someone in such an unstable state was clearly futile. He pried the vial from Pantalone's hand, then reached for his hand and held it.

          "I understand that this request is, fundamentally, selfish."

          Pantalone lifted his head slightly. His eyes were bloodshot.

          "I cannot offer any justification or argument to support it. It is simply the outcome I desire most. So, I'm asking you to..."

          "..."

          "To endure this reality, and keep living."

          Pantalone remained silent. Then, suddenly, a single tear slipped from the corner of his eye—followed by two, then three—until his face was drenched, the droplets glistening in the light.

          45 hurriedly dropped to one knee before him, panic churning violently in his chest.

          "Pantalone. I—"

          Pantalone raised both hands to cover his face. His bangs had fallen into disarray. When 45 reached out to brush them aside, his fingers met the dampness of tears.

          "Damn it. You can be furious with me, but please... just drink a little."

          Pantalone wouldn't meet his gaze. For some reason, that made 45 feel like he was sitting on hot coals. His fingers tightened around Pantalone's upper arm. Look at me. Just look at me. But Pantalone refused. He kept his face hidden behind his hands, muttering something beneath his breath.

          "...ik."

          "What was that?"

          Pantalone fell silent again. 45 felt something inside him twist as he carefully turned Pantalone's upper body toward him.

          "Look at me. If you don't want to talk anymore, that's alright. Just let me see your face one last time, and then I'll leave."

          Pantalone drew a shaky breath. At last, his fingers parted. Through the narrow gaps between them, 45 saw violet eyes webbed with broken capillaries staring straight into him.

          "Zandik. My Zandik. Did he..." his voice choked up. "Was he in pain when..."

          45 stood rooted to the spot, motionless as an ice statue. It felt like the ground had vanished beneath his feet, swallowing him into some bottomless abyss. He could no longer feel anything below him.

          My Zandik.

          "Hardly any," he heard himself say. A gaping void opened inside his chest. "He just convulsed for a few minutes, and then he was gone."

          Such a death was an act of immense mercy compared to the purgatory-like agony he was enduring now.

          "..."

          Pantalone's voice emerged hoarse and fractured. His shoulders trembled as he released a sound caught somewhere between a sob and a laugh.

          "Ha," he exhaled shakily. "How foolish. I really am a pathetic wretch."

          "I'm sorry."

          "For what?"

          "..."

          Pantalone lowered his head.

          "...Forget it. What good would it do anyway?"

*

          I shall not apologize for standing by and watching Zandik die. But rather, because I am not the Zandik you wanted.

10.

          It was a rainy night when he went outside.

          He and Pantalone walked beneath a single umbrella. Rain drummed against the canopy while the wet soles of their shoes pressed and slipped against the brick path. He tilted the umbrella toward Pantalone, leaving himself half-exposed to the rain. 

          They walked slowly along the narrow path. Beyond the curtain of rain, Zapolyarny Palace shone against the darkness, its lights radiant and cold. Their Tsaritsa no longer loved her people, and Pantalone had frozen whatever remained of his heart solid after Zandik perished. He had buried it deep within the vaults of the Northland Bank. Somewhere beneath layers of steel and stone, his heart lay in a top-secret cellar, locked away where no one could touch it. The scattered remnants of Zandik could catch only the faintest glimpse of it whenever Pantalone looked at them and saw someone else. They had always hated those moments.

          A gust of wind tore through the air. Cold water struck 45's mask, and for a moment the world blurred behind it. The figure beside him changed. Violet eyes looked back at him, young and bright. There was still a little light hiding in them when they looked at him, something that his love had never quite managed to conceal. Feofan. His Feofan. He had only been in his early thirties then.

          A mere glimpse of that smile and he realized just how terribly he had missed Feofan. Missed him so much that, in that hazy space between reality and illusion, he tore the mask from his face to see his beloved more clearly. He caught the other man by the wrist and called out, "Feofan? Feofan?"

          But when he wiped the rain from his face, there was only Pantalone standing before him. Older than the man in his memories, with weariness carved into the corners of his eyes. His face was both familiar and unfamiliar. It was like hearing an old song played on a broken gramophone. The melody remained, but the needle kept catching, dragging the past into ugly fragments.

          "Yes?" Pantalone replied with a faint, blank expression. He hadn't quite heard 45 through the heavy rain.

          Something inside 45 snapped. The sound was almost like a gramophone needle returning violently to its starting point. The rain became needles, and the night became white. For an instant, it felt like an entire snow-covered mountain had collapsed upon him, burying him beneath an avalanche. The air filled with the stench of wet earth, despair, and something bitter that had been rotting inside him for far too long.

          He could no longer tell whether he was looking at Pantalone or remembering Feofan. His mind writhed between the two. In the darkness, he could hear Pantalone breathing beside him, and suddenly his heart felt like a ruined palace. No one was ever going to give him his Feofan back. No one was ever going to give Pantalone his Zandik back.

          Now he understood. Perhaps he had understood it all along, deep beneath that veneer of rage. That was why, from the very moment of his creation, he had never been able to accept that Pantalone loved only Zandik. It wasn't merely jealousy, but also agony. He knew that his memories had been inherited from Zandik, that he was nothing more than an artificial construct made from another man's life. Yet he remembered living. He remembered laughing with Feofan until his sides hurt as they spoke of the miserable childhoods they had both survived. He remembered being loved.

          In the end, he simply couldn't reconcile himself to the fact that, having once been accepted by another, he was now left with nothing. That he had lost the Feofan of his memories, and his wretched life as a —m̶o̶n̶s̶t̶e̶r̶—human being. 

          He let go of Pantalone's wrist. Perhaps the anguish showed on his face, for Pantalone asked, "What is it?"

          "Nothing."

          It was the right thing to say. So why did misery seem to close in from every direction? Why did water drip from his hair, cold against his skin, and why did an electric shiver run through him when Pantalone touched his face?

          Don't come any closer. He didn't want to be himself. Moving forward was the answer. It had always been the answer. Keep walking, keep going, until mountains crumbled and the earth split open beneath his feet. But he could go no farther. Pantalone caught his hand and pulled him closer, guiding his head down until it rested against his shoulder. Neither of them said anything. Pantalone's slender fingers moved through his sodden hair, combing it back from his face.

          He had waited so long, groping his way through the tunnel, only to emerge and find that the people and scenes of the past were gone. He had travelled such a vast distance, only to discover that he had been wrong from the very beginning.

          A dry laugh escaped him, tinged with self-mockery. It was as though, at the very end of that long journey, he had turned back and realized there had never been anything waiting for him there. He wanted to destroy himself, to burn his body to ash. Yet, just as suddenly, he found himself willing to live it all over again. Perhaps despair had worn away every trace of hatred and affection, sweeping aside hope and disappointment alike until nothing remained but a desolate, ruined soul. And perhaps that was why, with nothing left to lose, he could finally open his heart to a world that was utterly rotten and overwhelmingly magnificent.

          He lifted his head from Pantalone's shoulder and took an envelope from his pocket, placing it in his hands. Inside were two theatre tickets and a bookmark adorned with tiny, pressed white flowers.

          "...I once asked if you wanted to go to the theatre with me. Back then, I approached you wrong. I assumed you would come simply because I was Zandik. So this time, I want to do it properly."

          "Pantalone, would you be willing to go to the theatre with '45', and let him get to know you all over again?"

          They had both been blind, seeing only the other's shadow at different points in time. But now, at last, he understood. He didn't want to waste any more of their lives circling each other in anguish. They had an eternity ahead of them. To spend it mourning a fantasy would be truly pathetic.

          Show me the Feofan who lived from his thirties into his seventies, and in return, I will let you see the forty-five-year-old Zandik you have forgotten.

          We have only each other now.

          Will you accept me once again?

          In the glow cast by the palace lights, a rare trace of anxiety flickered across his face.

          "...Alright."

          And his heart burst into a sky full of fireworks.

          "No backing out now. This is my down payment to you—with a little help from 8."

          He pointed to the bookmark. The pressed flowers had come from the tree 8 had tended for so long. 45 had bribed the kid into letting him pick a few.

          "I see," Pantalone smiled faintly. "Since I've received the deposit, I suppose I have to accept the deal and see it through properly. How do you plan to pay the rest?"

          "With the rest of my life. Would that do?"

          "I shall consider it."

          Perhaps they could be happy ever after now.