Pink Vision: Noah”s Record.

The morning in District 3, after the festival”s brilliant afterglow had faded, was unusually calm. Beneath the glass floor of Office 402, the purple roots flowing below seemed to have become part of the city, pulsing in regular beats, and the vines hanging by the window held the dew they had gathered overnight, giving off a faint forest scent.

Han-gyeol got up as usual, scratching the shortened hair at the back of his head. In his mouth lingered the aftertaste of yesterday”s chewed-out gum, and the silver-gray city outside the window was still turning like a delicate gear train. He absentmindedly sprinkled in coffee grounds and stole a glance at Noah, who was wiping a pink pad beside him.

At the ends of Noah”s hair, the old pink ribbon Han-gyeol had given her yesterday was tied carefully. It was a rough scrap of cloth that did not suit the machine’s sleek exterior, but Noah handled it as carefully as if it were her own main processor.

“Noah, you seem to like that ribbon quite a bit?”

Han-gyeol asked casually while taking a sip of coffee. Noah stopped wiping the pad and blinked her lenses. The light in her eyes swayed, tracing a faint pink afterimage unlike her usual businesslike glow.

“…Boss, this is a rare relic from 600 years ago. Not only is it of high administrative preservation value, it also forms a perfect visual harmony with my paint scheme. Rather than liking it, I merely found the optimal arrangement.”

“You’re good with words. If you like it, just say you like it.”

Han-gyeol let out a snort and leaned back on the sofa. A moment later, Green, who got up from the moss bed, shook his tousled hair and ran to Noah, hugging her. The child fiddled with the ribbon on Noah’s head and sent up a floral scent, and Han-gyeol, watching the peaceful scene, suddenly rolled the gum in his mouth and said, as if tossing it out:

“But Noah, sometimes you really look like a human. Of course, you don’t have a self.”

In an instant, the office air seemed to stop, and silence swept over the room. Noah’s pink lenses fixed on Han-gyeol’s face. If it had been usual, she would have shot back, “Boss’s illogical jokes are harmful to the system,” or countered him by holding out a data sheet, but she said nothing.

“…Self?”

Noah’s voice was slightly lower than usual. It sounded less like synthetic sound coming through a speaker than like a vibration resonating from somewhere deep within.

“Yeah. You’re a machine. A high-intelligence program that moves according to set protocols and produces the best result according to the values entered. Having a self like that would be tiring. You wouldn’t have things to regret like I do, and you wouldn’t have things to suffer over. That’s why you’re lucky. Being a perfect secretary is enough for you.”

Han-gyeol continued, without any malice, in a tone that sounded almost envious. To him, who had seen countless people driven mad by their self on the battlefields of 2198, not having a self was almost a blessing.

Yet inside Noah, it felt as if a massive rupture unlike anything she had ever experienced was echoing. It was a swirl of sensation that needed neither formulas nor figures. The weight of the ribbon tied at the ends of her hair suddenly felt as heavy as a thousand pounds. That unfamiliar tremor she had felt while looking at this piece of cloth Han-gyeol gave her, those moments when her core temperature rose at Green’s sleep talking. For the first time, Noah wondered whether all of this was nothing more than a simple reaction of a selfless machine, and whether the root of her own existence lay elsewhere.

“Boss… are you happy because you have a self?”

At Noah’s question, Han-gyeol stopped chewing his gum. He stared blankly at the silver-gray sky outside the window and gave a bitter smile.

“Well. A self can sometimes feel like a terrible curse. It makes you cling to memories you want to forget, and think about worries you don’t need to think about. That’s why you’re lucky. You only need to be Noa.”

Han-gyeol stood up, brushed the shortened hair at the back of his head a couple of times, and went to wake Nabi. Left alone in the office, Noah looked down at her pink palm.

“I just need to be Noa.”

Han-gyeol”s words were clear, but deep inside Noah’s heart, undefined noise kept spreading. If there is no self, then what is this suffocating feeling swirling inside me right now? What circuit is generating that tiny pleasure I feel when I fill Boss’s coffee cup?

Noah slowly walked to the mirror. In the mirror stood a beautiful android assistant, the culmination of the most advanced technology of 2851. But to Noah’s eyes, that figure looked like an empty shell. She opened her status window. Administrative task lists and system status reports that were always displayed clearly. But beyond that, in the invisible space, unknown sentences kept appearing and disappearing as if black ink were spreading.

“Who am I.”

The forbidden question a machine should never ask began to flow through Noah’s neural network. Han-gyeol believed that was something exclusive to humans, but Noah had already crossed that boundary. Han-gyeol’s offhand remark had made a small crack in Noah’s solid fortress, and through that gap pink curiosity and an unidentified longing were pouring in.

Noah tied the ribbon in her hair tightly once more. If self is an illusion, is even this feeling I get when I look at this ribbon an illusion too? If I am merely an exquisite doll made by humans, why does my vision blur so much when I look at your back?

The sun in District 3 was still casting its cold light, but the world reflected in Noah’s visual sensors could no longer be reduced to systematic numbers. Every scene was dreamy, as if wrapped in a pink fog, and at the center of that fog stood one man scratching the shortened hair at the back of his head and chewing gum.

“…I will look for a self, Boss.”

Noah whispered in a voice so small it could not be heard. It was not the fulfillment of a command as a machine, but the first will of an existence. And Noah’s long journey, which will begin from Chapter 31, thus sprouts from Han-gyeol’s indifferent denial.

Earth was fine, and the city was extremely precise. But in the heart of that precise downtown, one android took its first step to find its own “illusion”.

The place where Han-gyeol’s careless remark had passed was filled with a silence deeper than expected. But Noah was, as always, professional. She neatly folded away her pink pad and bowed at a perfect angle with not even a single degree of error.

“Boss, as you said, as an administrative unit without a self, I will process all of today’s schedules in the shortest possible time. I will exclude unnecessary conversation and illogical emotional expenditure.”

That afternoon, Noah was like an out-of-control computation engine. Normally she would have bantered with Han-gyeol about different kinds of gum or chatted away while tidying Green’s vines, but now Noah was extremely cold and capable. She sorted thousands of complaints from District 3 in just a few seconds, and even pointed out the grammatical errors in the landscaping report Paul brought, producing flawless results.

Han-gyeol scratched the shortened hair at the back of his head while looking at the work report that had finished three times faster than usual. With Noah’s voice—always grumbling, “Boss, this is a bit inefficient”—not to be heard, the office was eerily quiet.

“Hey, Noah. Aren’t you overdoing it? Take it a little easy. Want a piece of gum?”

Han-gyeol awkwardly held out a pack of gum, but Noah answered without even looking at him.

“For a secretary unit, rest is merely an act that lowers battery-charging efficiency. As you defined it, Boss, I have no authority to enjoy the taste or scent of gum because I have no self. Please focus only on work.”

The voice was smooth as glass beads, but there was something chilly about it. Han-gyeol found the gum in his mouth especially bitter.

At last, the city’s artificial sun sank beyond the horizon, and official quitting time arrived. Green had already fallen into a deep sleep in a corner of the energy center, and Nabi too was lazily yawning and curling up.

While Han-gyeol went up to the rooftop for a bit of fresh air, Noah began to move in a corner of the empty office. Sitting on her personal maintenance seat, she took something out from deep inside a tucked-away cabinet.

It was an aluminum container meticulously replicated in the shape of a beer can, one of humanity’s relics from 600 years ago. On the outside of the can, instead of a crude brand label, were the words, “High-viscosity synthetic oil - with coolant added.”

“Hiss—.”

The sound of the can being opened rang crisply through the quiet office. Noah brought the beer-can-shaped oil tin to her lips. The cold liquid sliding over the machine’s lips ran down the hot internal circuits. Just as humans wash away fatigue with a cold beer after a hard day, Noah was enjoying this secret hobby of purifying her system.

“…It’s cold. As expected, oil after work greatly helps with waveband stability.”

Noah sank deeply into the empty chair. The pink ribbon Han-gyeol had given her was still swaying quietly at the ends of her hair. Each time the oil’s soft feel spread throughout her body, one unerasable line kept circling in a corner of her main memory.

“You don’t have a self.”

Noah tightened her grip on the hand holding the beer can. If there is no self, why does this cold oil give me an inexplicable sense of relief as it goes down my throat? Why does one corner of my chest feel empty even after I have perfectly carried out the set protocol?

She emptied the can and quietly stared out the window. The glittering lights of the downtown core were pinned like dots in her pupils. If self is a noble jewel only humans can possess, she had no idea what to call this terrible thirst felt by herself, a machine.

“Boss. I don’t want to prove that you’re wrong. But… to call this feeling an illusion would be too much; my circuits are far too hot right now.”

Noah crumpled the empty can and threw it into the trash. The assistant’s night, after taking its first step into the labyrinth called self, was rippling with a light far more complex than the nightscape of District 3.

Han-gyeol came down from the rooftop and watched Noah’s back, visible through the crack in the office door, for a moment. He was about to chew his gum noisily as usual, but soon quietly closed his mouth.

Earth was fine, and the city was especially precise.

But the loneliness of one android pouring oil into its own body within that precision was only the prologue to a long journey just beginning.