Between Lives and Identities

PROLOGUE

Yuan's Pov

The rain poured relentlessly over Tarlac as I waited with my friend outside our company building. For once, I was grateful for my day off at least I wouldn't have to wade through this weather tomorrow.

A white Toyota Camry (2008 model) stopped in front of us. I smiled at my friend, "Bye! Thanks for waiting with me!"

I got into the car and saw those empty eyes I knew so well. They belonged to my friend Prince Machiavelli Buenafuente (yes, his parents really named him after the famous diplomat and author), stared at me with his usual detached expression.

"Hi, sorry for making you pick me up," I said, wiping rain off my clothes. "It's hard to commute in this rain."

He looked at where my friend was standing. "That's new. Is that your girlfriend? I mean... friend?"

"Where do you even get these ideas? That's just someone from work," I said. Then I teased him, "Or are you just insecure because you don't have one?"

"It's not even my cup of tea," he replied predictably, just as I expected.

The engine hummed as we pulled away from the curb, leaving the rain-soaked company grounds behind us.

The car's AC was running as we drove through the quiet streets with. I looked at him from my seat, watching his face in the dim light.

To break the awkward silence in the car, I turned to him with a curious look. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask – why don't you have a girlfriend yet?

"At your age as a college student. You could easily have a girlfriend," I said carefully. "But you choose to be alone. Why?"

His hands got tighter on the steering wheel. When he spoke, his voice changed, it got colder, different.

"Love?" He gave a short, harsh laugh. "Love is a beautiful lie we tell ourselves. You speak of it as if it exists. What humans call 'love' is merely a sophisticated biochemical deception an evolutionary trick to ensure the survival of our species. That's all it is."

"Maybe that's how you feel right now," I said quietly. "But one day you'll feel how empty being alone is. Eventually, you'll want someone to—"

I stopped talking when I felt something change in him. The air felt heavy, and it was like I was sitting next to a different person.

"I've watched love for years," he said, sounding empty inside. "I've seen it mess up smart people, turn normal people into fools who can't think straight. People who say love is special are just the ones who fell hardest for the lie."

He kept going, his words getting sharper. "It promises to make you happy but just hurts you. It says it'll bring people together but leaves them alone. People who fall in love are like moths flying into a fire, believing in the beauty of the light until their wings turn to ash. Just like foolish Icarus, yearning to get closer to the sun."

Even though the AC wasn't very strong, I felt cold. He kept talking, but I was too busy looking at his eyes, they were so sad and lonely.

"When someone gets their heart broken," he went on, "or when heartbreak becomes their breaking point, they see the truth. Love doesn't show us anything good, it just shows how empty we all are inside. It shows us not our capacity for good, but the infinite depths of our potential for self-destruction."

"I kind of get it. My girlfriend left me a few years ago," I said. "But it didn't mess me up like you're saying."

"See!" He looked at me quickly. "Love isn't real. It's just a bunch of mind games and pressure from society, all meant to keep people stuck needing each other. I choose to stay out of it. I'd rather watch from the outside than get caught up in the biggest lie humans tell themselves."

He got quieter for a moment. "Look, I'm just starting college. Maybe I'll think different later, but right now, I'm okay with maybe never getting married. That's just how it is."

The streetlights made shadows dance across his face as we drove. We both got quiet, thinking about love and being alone.

Yes, he has some eccentric views on life, but I know where it all comes from. He endured something deeply traumatic in his childhood, an experience that fractured parts of him into something else. I've grown used to his aura shifting, an energy that's entirely different from his usual self one I've come to recognize all too well. When a certain intensity takes over, I know it's his alter coming through.

Prince has DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder, shaped by that painful event twelve years ago. His alter, whom he calls "Machiavelli," emerged to handle what he couldn't. 

Machiavelli knows he's not the host, that he's a part of Prince created to protect him from what he couldn't face alone. It's not always this clear for people with DID; some never know which part is the original and which is the protector.

Prince is aware, or maybe they're both aware and they can manage who takes control, specially around other people. But sometimes that boundary slips, especially when something touches the old wounds.

I Lost in thought, I barely noticed we'd arrived at our destination.....