A jagged bolt of light tore through the clouds, illuminating the glass curtain walls of the buildings. The thunder, arriving late, sent a buzzing vibration through the apartment's windows. Rain lashed against the glass with the wind, fracturing the shadows of the two people inside into fine, scattered specks of light.
"This is a dream, isn't it?"
The city was at his back, but the twilight, thick with haze, failed to reach his front, leaving his face submerged in shadow.
Alain lifted his gaze, looking directly at the slender figure's back.
She wasn't wearing the pajamas from her room in Version 1.1, but a white lace dress instead. This was a style Alain had only ever seen on Misha.
That's right... Misha.
Memories kept surfacing. He pushed aside the fog of forgetfulness and saw, once again, the scenes of his past with them.
"How did you figure it out?"
Sleepy Mita sighed, turning her head slowly to gaze at him.
Her eyes, which had grown a little clearer after coming to reality, instantly reverted to how they were in the game world—drowsy and hazy, uninterested in everything.
And at that moment, words that had left a deep impression on him surfaced in Alain's mind.
One of them had said: [Please, you must... you must come back to me safely.]
And another had said: [Sir Knight, thank you for saving me! I look forward to living with you.]
As for the other one...
"..."
His bro hadn't really said anything that moving. He'd just have to count her unwashed hand as their promise.
"It's simple. The happiness you've created is too fake."
"Guh...!"
Hearing this, Sleepy Mita's shoulders trembled unnaturally.
She clenched her soft hands, her arms tense, and glared at him.
"F-Fake...? Why would you think it's fake? In a dream, you can do anything you want, you know."
"It's because you find them troublesome that I've tucked them away. This way, you don't have to put up with all those difficult requests."
"...You might have misunderstood something."
Alain cut her off. "Those so-called 'difficult' requests, or rather, those little bits of 'willfulness,' are a precious form of happiness to me."
"It's because they trust me, trust me without reservation, that they can be so demanding with me."
"When it comes to happiness... you still don't understand a thing."
He sighed. His almost preachy tone made Sleepy Mita take a few steps back.
"What kind of... what kind of happiness is that?" she asked, quickly walking in front of Alain and looking up into his eyes.
"Being willful even when you have a player—isn't that just being spoiled? Why would you find that cute?!"
"And what's wrong with being spoiled? Isn't that a cute trait in itself?" Alain lowered his gaze.
"I occasionally make off-color jokes with them, and they accept them completely. Isn't that just my way of being spoiled with them? Besides..."
He recalled the scenes from the dream. Miluo's children's cutlery and underwear, Misha's three consecutive "goodbyes," his bro... he couldn't really think of anything for her, so he'd just have to count her in.
The three of them, in their own ways, were reminding Alain: wake up from the dream, and when you do, see them again.
Indeed... this was a dream, no doubt, but their personalities hadn't changed a bit.
They all wanted to help him. Even in a dream, it was no different from reality.
"I don't understand you..." The girl's eyes widened, her clear pupils filled with incomprehension.
"You could just enjoy happiness in a dream, smoothly and without any obstacles, why do you insist on 'waking up' again?"
"Because it's all fake, isn't it?"
Alain's blunt words made the girl's brow twitch. Her own words were like the whipping branches outside the window, trembling.
"F-Fake?"
"Yes."
His peripheral vision caught the storm raging over the city. Rain traced distorted paths down the windowpane.
"It's like... no matter how happy it seems, no matter what wonderful scenes you show me, I can't feel—any happiness at all. Because it's all an illusion."
His expression hardened as he looked at Sleepy Mita again.
She wasn't sleepy now.
"Nothing but imitations."
"Crack, crack..."
Alain could clearly hear a sound like shattering glass. All the furniture in the room groaned with a piercing shriek.
"But... this is the happiness I find so precious. I thought that as a player, you, of all people, would understand..."
"Happiness on a screen isn't my happiness. Besides..."
Alain bent down slightly, bringing his gaze level with the girl's, "Why do you have to force me to accept your happiness?"
This was something Alain couldn't understand from the very beginning.
Sleepy Mita—it was now clear she was the perpetrator of the dreams he'd been experiencing. Everything that had happened in the real world last time was all her doing.
Logically, facing a Mita who could now be called an "enemy," Alain should have felt wary.
But in his heart, there wasn't the slightest bit of apprehension. If anything...
She had no intention of "killing" him at all.
Sleepy Mita's dream ability was absurdly powerful, capable of even distorting his perception.
And yet, all she had to do was make Alain forget all the Mitas and his past right from the start. Then, leveraging his high affection for Mita, Sleepy Mita could have appeared before him in person.
That way, everything would have fallen right into her hands.
Or if she really wanted to get rid of him, she could have just given him total amnesia. He wouldn't have even been able to move forward.
But she didn't do that.
Instead, she tirelessly contacted Alain again and again within the dream, hoping he would accept her "philosophy of dream happiness."
"I... am forcing you to accept my happiness?"
She muttered to herself, stumbling back a few steps until her back hit the wall, leaving her nowhere to retreat.
"No... it's not."
"You are."
"It's not..." She clutched her head.
Just as thunderclouds rolled over the city, her own face was clouded over.
"Happiness... isn't this happiness?"
"No, it's completely fake happiness."
Alain was determined to shatter every last one of her delusions and wishful thoughts.
"All of this, it's all fake!"
"It is not!"
"BOOM—!!!"
Sleepy Mita seemed to be shocked awake by the flash of lightning. Cowering in the corner, her voice rang out at the same time as the thunder.
That piercing silver-blue light penetrated the beige curtains, illuminating every detail of the room.
As if that were the dividing line, cracks like creeping devils spread across the entire room.
"This isn't fake! And I'm not forcing you to accept—"
"But that's exactly what's happening, isn't it?!" Alain roared.
The girl clamped her hands tightly over her ears, crouching on the ground, her eyes wide with terror.
The lightning ceased its racket. The only sounds in the room were the patter of rain, Alain's breathing, and her whimpering sobs.
"Waking up is so scary..."
"Hmph!"
After her last words, the structure of the room could no longer hold, and it shattered completely.
"I want... to sleep."
______
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