Kei: Okay…… I guess…… it’s all a dream.
—: That’s right. This is a dream.
Kei: If that’s all, then… okay……
If it’s just one of those dreams I see ever so often.
If I’m just going to forget, anyway.
If that’s it, then now, I’ll be a good girl.
Making that decision, much as I did coming all this way.
Because I don’t want this person to be sad.
Kei: If that’s all, I’ll forget.
I bow my head in a nod.
—: Good girl.
That person raises her gentle hands, smiling at me.
Smiling, with a faint sense of loneliness.
—: Goodbye, Kei-chan.
As she speaks, she embraces my head, as if wrapping it up.
Upon her spreading sleeves, an emergent white pattern of butterflies.
And a smell, resembling the gentle, faint fragrance of a flower…
It is an invitation… into a sweet sleep that would melt everything away. Even in the midst of a dream, my eyelids become sluggish and heavy.
As I drowsily begin to release my consciousness…
We are interrupted by a ringing bell.
—: …!
Force enters the arms embracing me.
As if I’m being protected preciously, it’s a pleasant, very reassuring sensation, but…
The face I see above has an unbearably anxious expression.
As the bell rings again, it is enveloped in a singsong voice.
—: No use. You can’t now. Even if you hide her now, it’s too late, you know.