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Shigeo couldn't sleep.
His mind, just like it had done for a few weeks now, couldn't find quiet for long enough that he could peacefully close his eyes and sleep before he was physically unable to stay awake. Was that what happened when you lived six months worth of a life that could have been easily been yours?
So far, he was able to tell which events were from his own life, and which from that Mogami had created. There were some details that gave most of it away. The colors were duller in his memories from Mogami's life. The shadows darker. The people, crueler. Sure, Shigeo hadn't had the... best experiences sometimes in his true life. But, they weren't half as bad as most from Mogami's.
His true life.
What a funny thought.
It was in times like this he struggled with separating them. Wasn't it as true as his current one? He had experienced every second of those six months, the pain of a lifetime, without a single trace of a thought about all the kindness he knew here. Hadn't all that despair been true?
Mob could trace back most of the differences to a single event.
Meeting Shishou.
In his worst memories from his true life, what made them stand out, not get confused with Mogami's dullness even in the cloudiest of memories, was the comfort of a softly spoken word that held his spirits up high. A caring piece of advice, the reminder to not let others get the best out of him.
The soft echo wasn't there in Mogami's life memories.
Shisou wasn't there in the slightest.
However, there was one particular figment of his memory that stood out. It was most definitely from his true memories, because Shishou was there. However, it held the coldness, the acidic hurt of every moment from Mogami's life. Bitter enough to have made Mob doubt whenever he thought too much about it.
"Grow up, for crying out loud."
Mob heard that so often during Mogami's life. If Shishou's face hadn't been so deeply etched in the memory, Shigeo would have sworn he was starting to lose his mind. Mixing up his lives.
"They don't actually care about you. They're just having fun mocking someone as wimpy as you."
If it had come from anybody but Shisou, Mob would have been so certain it was about his every day during Mogami's life. It wasn't even an exaggeration, when he thought of it like that. Shishou might not have seen a glimpse of that life, but it felt as if he described every single moment Shigeo spent there.
Could his Shishou have chosen a worse set of words?