EVARA | JAYHOON [Hiatus]

01: Faith Moves A Mountain

✮

His name's Janus. He has it written on his wrist as 'J' followed by four zeroes, but they have registered him as 'Janus' on the personal information board. Despite the paperwork reflecting 'Janus,' Jay is the name that persists among those who know him well.

He likes to imagine that this is the name his parents used when they sent him to the orphanage. There is no way to be sure because when a parent brings their child to the orphanage, all previous information gets destroyed. It could also be that his parents brought him without a name, and the orphanage's main database generated one for him using random sounds.

He also wonders if perhaps his father wasn't there, and his mother had suffered a terrible disaster in her life, leaving him at the orphanage despite loving him deeply. He imagines himself crying longingly as she left, his tiny hands outstretched towards her. His mother must have been heartbroken looking back at him, but there was nothing she could do. As she walked away from the orphanage, she was probably crying hysterically, her face buried in her hands, with passers-by staring at her in wonder. The whole world must have seemed empty and meaningless to her in the deep sorrow of leaving her child behind.

Andrei, however, does not believe him. He thinks Jay had no parents, and he was created as a clone in a laboratory.

Jay never fully learned social etiquette, having grown up in an orphanage under the care of robots. Most of his words come out harshly, even when he doesn't intend to be rude. Sometimes he wants to say something sweet to a dear person, but a certain kind of shyness holds him back. He knows very few people, and the number of his friends is even fewer. Jay has a good friendship with Andrei, who isn't as antisocial and unsociable as Jay.

When they are alone together, they often sit in silence, spending their time observing the people around them. On days when they have sufficient units to spend, they sit in a suburban bar and chat over a Sapphine-infused soft drink. The biochemistry of Sapphine induces a sense of comfort by affecting neuron cell signals in the brain, allowing them to recall happy memories. In these moments, they look at each other and speak in soft, fluid voices.

Tonight after taking the third glass of drink, Andrei suddenly started speaking nineteen to the dozen. He looked at Jay and patted the table saying, "Jay, you are nothing but an idiot. That's why you believe that you were born from the love of your parents."

As Jay's speech almost always sounds harsh, the opposite is the case with Andrei. Even if he says something rude, he somehow always sounds childish or goofy. Jay took a sip of his drink and said, "It's entirely up to me what I want to believe."

"But irrational belief is meaningless," Andrei argued back.

"Belief alone is irrational. If something can be proven by true logic, it doesn't have to be believed— it already gets accepted by everyone. Belief should be placed solely in things devoid of logic."

Andrei frowned and said, "Where did you hear such nonsense?"

"This is not nonsense at all. You must not have read history. If you read the history, you will know that in ancient times, people believed in a thing called religion. There was no proof of that, the whole religion was built on faith."

Andrei tensed his facial muscles unnecessarily as he said, "Accept the truth, Jay. No real parent would ever send their child to an orphanage. Only a clone can grow up in an orphanage full of robots."

"You know human cloning has been outlawed for the past two centuries," Jay interrupted. He leaned over the counter as he played with the glass in his hand, "It's been strictly forbidden in the past too. Especially when 'religion' still was a thing on earth..."