The day had progressed with minor variations from the norm, but these were variations Nemuro did not approve of, ripples in an otherwise stable system. There was Utena Tenjou, Tokiko, and the reminder – almost painful – of what he had sought and failed to find, as he saw reflected in the mirror of himself that was her.

Pink hair, blue jacket, slender build; it was eerie how much she resembled him, right down to their heights, which were identical. More specifically, she resembled Mikage, the genius student who had conducted the seminar before he had been institutionalized. Nemuro suspected that Mikage had known her, that they had probably gone to school together, but since both of them denied recollection of that he could not verify it.

Why am I spending so much time worrying about this? I am giving too much credence to my dreams. Utena's resemblance to Tokiko, a woman who I can't even remember, is merely coincidental. As for Mikage – he is nothing more than a figment of my imagination.

Yet, as much as he would have liked to simply dismiss that figment and ignore him, Mikage had bothered him more last night than any of today's events had. Nemuro cared little about what behavior two consenting adults chose to engage in, but his alter ego's fond adoration of a boy so many years younger disturbed him. In some fashion, after all, Mikage was him – except that Nemuro would never have loved Mamiya that way. It wasn't just the age difference; there was something else, too… Mamiya ought to have been like a younger brother, not a lover.

He is only a child! he thought disapprovingly.

It was worse because he could remember the details of it so vividly. He could feel the boy's hands on his body, the softness and warmth of his dark skin. The memories were arousing, sensual, and… pleasant. Disturbingly so.

When Nemuro sank into bed that night, he broke his usual habit of dismissing his dreams and addressed his other self directly.

"If you are me," he said, aloud, so he could hear the voice that was the same in both realities, "you will not do that again. Mamiya is a child. At least let him grow up, first."

He fell asleep doubting very much that Mikage would listen to him. His last thought, as he drifted off, could have belonged to either of them. Or perhaps it came from both:

… but we are the same.

(in
the
asylum)

It must be the new medication, he thought, grasping his head and leaning over the table. He had not had a migraine this bad in…

… who could remember, anyway? It hurt. The noise around him was amplified many times over, and his skin crawled with painful sensitivity to anything he touched. Worse was the sensation that he was losing himself. It was as if Mikage were being swept away, dragged and ripped and broken apart by wave after wave of emotions that belonged to someone else. Certainly they were not his. He was not this despairing, lonely, anguished, pathetic person whose sensations intruded on his being. He was cold, rational, in control. He was…

Laughter drifted to him from one of the tables. "… in denial, isn't he?"

"He always is. That's why he's in an asylum."

"Does he remember trying to kill himself?"

I never tried to kill myself, he thought automatically, before it occurred to him that the conversation probably wasn't about him. That logical realization was washed away by his paranoid, increasingly unfamiliar mind within a few moments. No, they had certainly been discussing him. He could hear it in their mocking voices. Now they were laughing. It struck him to the core. The sound was shrill, painful, slamming in his head like a hammer. He pushed his untouched breakfast tray aside and rested his head on the table.

Stop, he thought. Please stop… Please stop all the noise.

It did not stop, and neither did the increasingly powerful and incomprehensible desire to cry. He fought it because it was foreign, because he felt it didn't come from himself but from somewhere else. With it came such a sense of helpless desperation that he wanted to flee, to curl in a corner and hide and pray for the world to vanish.

The drugs. The drugs are messing with my mind. I've got to get out of here. I'm going insane.

You already are insane, answered a voice within him. Or was it from outside of him? It was hard to tell, what with his pounding headache and the cacophony of background noises.

No, it's the drugs. The drugs, the drugs are tearing my mind apart and making me weak.

That's incorrect. They're tearing your defenses away and showing you what you really are. Weak. Unhappy. Lonely, and too afraid of trusting anyone to reach out and ask for help. This whole indifference act is a shell designed to protect you, because the truth is your life is empty… He squirmed under the calm, relentless accusation of that familiar-unfamiliar inside-outside voice whispering in his mind. … you're filled with nothing and too paralyzed by your own emotional ineptness to do anything about it. This desperate, weepy soul pleading for help? That's who you really are, but you shield yourself with indifference to keep yourself blind to your own suffering; it's your coping mechanism for the world you're afraid to face. Laughably pathetic, really. Can you hear them laughing at you?

"No! That's not me, that's Nemuro!" He covered his ears to drown out the deafening babble of voices in the room, and squeezed his eyes shut so that he did not have to see the faces of people staring at him. "He's the one who can't touch people! He wears those gloves and glasses to put another layer of distance between himself and the world, and keeps running around in that pointless circle, that same ridiculous problem that he doesn't understand is the symbol for his life… He's the one who's pathetic! He's free, all he has to do is step out of that routine. I'm trapped in an asylum! There's nothing I can do!"

"Souji!"

The tap of a hand on his shoulder startled him out of the chaos of his mind. He turned around, and found himself facing a nurse.

"Calm down, all right?" she said.

"Nurse Beckam, is that right? You're the one who gets flustered and quiet whenever you talk to Dr. Sanders." He smirked humorlessly. "Maybe you should try this new medication I'm on. It seems to have a strong effect on inhibitions, and you're so painfully shy."

Her eyes widened. It was just another one of those observations he had made while having nothing to do in this place – minor daily interactions revealed a wealth of information about people, including Beckam's hidden crush on Sanders and Sanders' obliviousness to her.

"It's quite obvious, you know," he went on. It was strange balm to the hurt inside him to inflict discomfort on this patronizing nurse, until some part of him recognized how strained and uncharacteristic his behavior was, and he asked irritably, "What the hell did they put me on, anyway?"

"If you want people to answer your questions," she said stiffly, "you should learn to be polite."

"I knew it," he grumbled as she left. "The purpose of the unnamed medication is to keep me crazy, that's why they won't tell me what it is…"

The medication isn't necessary for that. You've been crazy all along. If you listen very closely, you can hear them. Listen… the sounds of the laughter and celebration of the hundred youths you killed. They are enjoying your madness. Perhaps this is their revenge. What sort of person would burn down a building and kill a hundred people?

I am not going to listen to voices in my head, he thought, frowning and swaying slightly with the sudden dizziness he felt. I refuse to cooperate in furthering my own insanity… Yet, he did listen, perhaps out of morbid curiosity or perhaps precisely because he had declared he wouldn't. The babble of the cafeteria died to a murmur, and he strained to hear beyond it.

If you listen really closely you might hear the answer to that question, to what sort of person would murder one hundred youths in a fire. It's so faint it's like trying to hear your own heartbeat. Be still, and listen, and you can hear it.

… can you hear yourself crying?

The voice had had him fooled up until that point; he'd actually been straining quite hard, past the voices of the hundred murdered youths (Yes, he heard them, and yes, they were laughing), but now it was just trying to make him hate himself. And damn it, it was working.

"I am not going to listen to you anymore," he murmured.

But now that he had heard it, the sound of weeping wouldn't stop. It grew louder, maddeningly so. He dropped his face in his hands and felt moisture, leaking down his cheeks and through his fingers.

Then the nurse's voice called him from far away. "Souji? Souji, are you crying? I think you'd better go back to your room. Come along."