Pitbabe S2, Chapter 33 pg 5
Pitbabe S2, Chapter 33 pg 5
“What?” I let out a soft exclamation, looking at the young researcher in confusion. She’s the one who asked me, and now she’s calling me a liar? What’s her deal? “I’m telling the truth. I don’t love Babe more than myself.”
“But from what I see, it’s not like that at all.”
“If my taking care of him means I love him more than myself, then I think Liu needs to step out of the lab and find some love.”
“It’s not just about you taking care of him,” Liu said slowly, her gaze drifting upward at the angle of her reclined head. I don’t know what she was looking at, or maybe she wasn’t looking at anything—just keeping her eyes open. “You’d sacrifice everything for him, give in to everything… even let him deceive you.”
“Hmm…” I mulled over Liu’s words, admitting they stung a little. It felt like she was calling me foolish and spineless, though I’ve never seen myself that way. “If we’re talking about what happened, then yeah, I might’ve done what you said.”
“Exactly. Because you love Babe more than yourself.”
“But that’s not it.”
“Then answer one question,” Liu paused for a moment, as if signaling me to brace myself. “Could you die for Babe?”
“Absolutely.”
I answered the moment her question ended. Silence settled over us. I wasn’t sure what Liu was thinking or how she felt about my response. The only thing I was certain of was that the words I’d just spoken were the most confident I’d ever been about anything in my life.
“And you still don’t call that loving him more than yourself?”
“If your idea of loving oneself is the same as mine, I don’t think it can be called that.”
The memory of that night flooded back uninvited—Babe crying so hard his body shook. He clung to my arm, thoughts and feelings pouring out in a chaotic mess, as if he was trying to say everything he could think of, anything that might make me understand and forgive him, anything heavy enough to keep me from leaving. The last time I saw Babe cry that intensely was when he learned the truth about me, and the next time was this one, when I learned a certain truth about him.
“Everything I do is for myself,” I said flatly, my eyes scanning the surroundings. The warehouse, decorated to the point it no longer looked like one, felt like a secret base. If this were the past, I’d have been thrilled, my childish dreams coming true. But now, faced with this reality, I felt a twinge of melancholy. The mission I’d been given wasn’t the exciting adventure I’d imagined. It was terrifying, making it hard to close my eyes each night, and painful enough that I didn’t know how to move past it.
“I do everything to protect Babe because I know I can’t live without him. I’m not worried about him—I’m worried about myself. I’m scared that if one day he’s gone, my life will lose its purpose, its dreams, everything.”
Those thoughts were terrifying. Just talking about them made my chest tremble and feel hollow, as if it might actually happen. That’s why I do everything in my power to prevent it.
“Even if we’re not together, even if he deceived me, and even if I can’t look him in the face right now, in the end, I still want him to exist. I want to know he’s safe, wherever he is, with whoever makes him happy and takes care of him. That’s enough for me to keep going.”
I hadn’t thought about these things in a long time, so it’s good that Liu brought it up. Now I feel like I’m revisiting my goals again, after being so caught up in the how for so long.
“So, if you ask why I’d choose to die instead, I’d say it’s because that’s the path where I’d be happier. I don’t believe in an afterlife. I think when we die, we just turn to ash, to dust, to fertilizer. No awareness, no feelings anymore. That’s the upside of me dying before him.”
“But if he dies before me, the rest of my life would be like hell. I can’t let go. I wouldn’t get through it, couldn’t forget him. I’m not strong enough for that. So, I’d rather die instead, because it’s the only way I won’t have to hurt. I don’t even care what happens to Babe after I’m gone. I only care about myself, about making sure I don’t hurt.”
“Someone who loves others more than themselves wouldn’t think like this.”
Silence falls between us again. I don’t know if Liu is still listening or if she’s drifted off, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’ve dived into my own thoughts, into the core of who I am and the deep desires I haven’t faced in a while. I feel like I’m seeing myself more clearly, not just some blurry outline like before.
“I hope Babe thinks like you,” Liu says after a long pause, confirming she’s been listening all along, not asleep. “Two people trying to die for each other… that’d be pretty interesting.”
“I doubt Babe thinks like me,” I say with a scoff. “He’s stronger than me, and not as selfish as I am.”
“I thought the first time you broke up with Babe was because you felt he was the selfish one.”
“That’s not quite right,” I say, trying to recall that night we broke up to revisit some feelings. But it’s hard—my brain keeps blocking it out, a defense mechanism against pain that’s beyond my control. “I think I was disappointed because Babe wasn’t as selfish as me. I was angry that he didn’t care about his own life or death.”
“And what about you saying you wanted to help others?”
“Hmm… yeah.”
I talk like I understand myself, but maybe I’ve never understood anything at all. My thoughts might be wrong. I’m living a contradiction I created myself. I hope one day I can answer every question without hesitation, if I have enough time left to learn a bit more.
“Maybe I don’t actually want to help anyone.”
Liu doesn’t respond, as if she’s deliberately leaving a gap for me to find the answer and fill it in myself.
The room is dead quiet. Even though two people are sitting together, there’s no conversation. Liu stays sprawled on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, while I’m fighting with myself over some trigger that’s crept into my awareness.
A bad feeling is brewing.
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