I'm not sure where that place was that day. It felt like an auditorium, or maybe an underground bunker. The ceiling was high and the space was needlessly vast. It felt like it could fit hundreds of people, but it was strangely quiet, and I thought I was alone there.

I was wearing blue glasses that someone seemed to have given me when I entered. They looked like the 3D glasses you get at a movie theater, but a bit thicker, like safety goggles. Both lenses were bright blue, so the world inside looked all bluish, but I didn't think it was particularly strange. I guess I thought it was just the kind of place where you wear those things.

I don't remember what I did in that vast place. I think I was just wandering around the empty space by myself.

Then, without much thought, I slightly lowered the glasses to the tip of my nose.

That's when I saw a person.

Right nearby.

His dark blue hair fell to around the nape of his neck, and he had it half-tied. He was big and was wearing a zip-up hoodie loosely over a black tank top. I don't remember his face in detail, but he had a pretty rebellious impression overall. He wasn't looking around like someone who happened to run into me in a place like this; he was just standing there as if he had been there from the start.

So that person got glasses and came in too.

I pushed the glasses back up.

Wait, what?

The person was gone.

He was definitely standing there just a second ago, but there was no one. Only the empty space remained as it was.

Only then did I think something was strange,

So I took the glasses off again.

That man was there.

And there was another one behind him.

The exact same man.

There was one to the side, and one a bit further away. By the pillars, near the walls, even in the spots I had walked past without a care in the world.

One. Two. Three. Four. ㅤ . . . ㅤ It wasn't even a matter of counting.

The vast space was filled with scores of the same person. A place that looked so empty just a moment ago suddenly became packed with people just because I took off my glasses. The same face, hair, clothes, and build—all the same man.

Only then did I realize what the glasses were doing.

The blue lenses were erasing that man entirely, just like a blue screen chroma key. It wasn't that there were no people; it was that I couldn't see them.

So I hadn't been alone from the start.

I had been wandering among all those things, thinking I was alone without knowing a thing.

But what was even stranger was that it wasn't multiple people.

It was all one person.

As if there was a main body and he had just increased his own numbers.

The guy in front of me was him, The guy far away was him, The guy behind me was all the same person.

There was no point in counting how many there were. Even if the number of bodies was high, in the end, it was just one person.

Realizing that, I looked back at the man I saw first.

Our eyes met.

He wasn't even surprised. He didn't look like he'd been caught.

He had a face that already knew I had finally understood the situation.

The corners of his mouth curled up slightly.

Oh, you finally noticed.

With exactly that kind of expression.

I think it was from that moment.

Even though there were so many people around, strangely, I didn't feel like I was surrounded by many.

Because no matter which way I looked, it was the same person.

He was in front, he was behind, and he was to the side, but in the end, the only one surrounding me from start to finish was one person.

And after that— ㅤ ㅤ . ㅤ . ㅤ . ㅤ . ㅤ . ㅤ . ㅤ ㅤ I don't remember.

It's gone, as if that part was cut out.

But strangely, the sensation remains.

I was swept away by a wave, crushed by pressure, and one person's voice whispered from multiple directions.

From start to finish, to just one person.

That one person was just too many. ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ♪: bandlacuna - TOOOOOO