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Mimories are cruel, and Fundy hates them. Somehow, filling yourself with false memories just so you can feel complete feels abjectly wrong, despite the fact people have been doing it for as long as Fundy can remember. If one can afford it, one can tamper with their own memories.
Fundy, however, wasn't completely against tampering with his own memories. He'd figured if he's an existence no one cared about in the first place, then why not make his past stop existing? If his existence is empty, why not make himself well and truly empty?
This is why he bought Lethe and not Mimories: to erase everything, every single memory he's ever had, and go back to zero.
But something had happened. It was an accident. Instead of giving him Lethe, the Mimories company had given him something else and he'd taken it without so much as giving the label a read-through, excited to finally hit a restart button. It turns out they've given him Green Green—a drug to give him Mimories, nanobots to change his memories and give him a childhood.
And that is how he has a childhood friend now. One that he's never actually met before. One that he's never actually seen before. A childhood friend that doesn't exist. A denizen of Mimories, so to speak.
Every single person in a Mimory is someone who has never existed, someone who will never match any of the living. His childhood friend is a person from a Mimory.
His non-existent childhood friend’s name, like a mocking voice in his head, is Dream .
“You should really wake up.”
They’re ten, hanging outside the foyer of his house.
It’s summer, and Fundy finds that he actually dislikes summer, and finds himself faring better when it’s cold. He wishes it was winter instead. He likes the cold.
“Don’t wanna,” Fundy replies, his already closed eyes tightening.
“Fundy,” Dream says, “You’ve been on my lap for an hour. I can’t feel my legs anymore.”
Fundy sticks his tongue out and Dream flicks his forehead.
He knows, even without opening his eyes, what Dream looks like. Vibrant green eyes and freckles on both cheeks, blond hair that almost looks silver in a certain light.
“You’re so mean.”
“If you don’t stand up now I’m playing a prank on you.”
“That would only make me not want to move more, wouldn’t it?” Fundy replies cheekily with a grin.
“Not when this is the prank.”
A second later Fundy can feel Dream’s breath on his face. He blushes, scrambling away from the other boy. Dream wheezes as Fundy glares at him.
“I know, I know, you’re saving your first kiss for someone special.”
Love is something that can only happen between people who exist, is what Fundy thinks. For him, a forgotten existence, and for Dream, someone who only exists in his false memories, it would be impossible.
Yet still he wavers about taking the Lethe that can erase the false memories he got from Green Green.
Because of Green Green, he now has memories of a childhood with a friend and a lover. The childhood friend that stuck by you, through thick and thin.
And that’s why it’s cruel to him. Because everything, every single thing that he remembers isn’t real. Those happy things that he experienced, is - and never has been - real. Dream isn’t real. Which meant the love he felt for him can’t be real either.
They’re thirteen. It’s the first day of classes. But Fundy had already gotten himself in an accident. It’s almost laughable.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Dream’s voice is kind, if reprimanding.
Fundy only buries his head on his shoulder, tightening his grip around his neck.
Dream tries to situate Fundy better on his back. The injury had been to his leg, and though he didn’t break it, it wouldn’t be possible for Fundy to walk home from school, as they usually do. It’s when they were almost at the last turn to his house when Fundy speaks again.
“They said I wasn’t a man.”
“Fundy…”
“I know it’s stupid and I should just stop caring but I do care. I do. It’s me that…” He sighs. “I’m a boy too. I’m a man. It’s just… wrong body, is all.”
“I know that,” Dream replies.
When he finally drops him off, Dream pats his head. Fundy frowns despite the fact he enjoys it.
“Just because you’ve started growing taller…” he mumbles.
Dream laughs. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Funds.”
It’s the sixteenth of November.
An ordinary day, as far as Fundy is concerned. And yet -
And yet he feels like something is off. It’s like he’s forgotten something.
His feet had brought him to a festival before he even knew. A festival…
He remembers it - in his fake memories.
They’re sixteen, and they’ve passed through every single stall, Dream and Fundy scamming the vendors. An eye for an eye, after all. Dream is extremely skilled at the games, and Fundy always makes sure he wins, catching on pretty quick on how the vendors cheat their games and telling Dream about it, exploiting the little loopholes.
Today was another festival. Was this why I went here? Is the question he had for himself. To look for a man that doesn’t exist. To care for memories that aren’t even real. He should have taken the Lethe to forget all the Mimories from Green Green.
But that’s when he hears it.
“Fundy?”
He turns around in the sea of people.
Dream is a fabricated person from a fabricated memory of a childhood.
But he sees the silver blond hair and the lime green jacket - almost hard to miss really, and Fundy finds himself going after him.
“Dream!” he shouts. “ Dream! ”