The night had grown late, and the sounds of the game had faded away several minutes ago, leaving the house in a comfortable silence.
Arou stood up and began tidying the living room.
"You two should get some sleep," he said. "You can sleep in my room."
Hikari and Lumina exchanged glances.
A faint blush slowly appeared on both of their faces.
Arou frowned.
"What?"
Lumina cleared her throat and looked away.
"Idiot," she muttered quietly. "Were you planning to sleep with us too?"
Arou paused for a moment before shaking his head.
"No. I'll sleep in the living room."
Lumina turned back toward him, her expression immediately changing.
"Oh... I see."
She lowered her gaze slightly.
"Sorry. I misunderstood."
Hikari covered her mouth and giggled.
"Hehe... Dad really does have a habit of leaving out important details."
Arou let out a quiet sigh.
"I just didn't want either of you to feel uncomfortable."
Lumina nodded.
"Thank you."
Hikari smiled warmly before heading toward the bedroom.
"Then... good night, Dad."
Arou remained standing in the living room, watching the bedroom door close softly behind them. For the first time that night, the exhaustion weighing on his shoulders felt a little lighter.
After turning off the lights, he stretched out on the sofa.
The house was usually quiet and empty, but tonight there were other breaths beneath the same roof. Somehow, that alone was enough.
Just as he was about to fall asleep, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.
"Wait... this house has plenty of empty rooms."
He stared at the ceiling for a moment before shrugging.
"Eh, whatever. I'm already comfortable here."
With that, he closed his eyes.
---
Arou's room was silent when Hikari and Lumina entered.
A small desk lamp cast a soft glow across the simple room.
Lumina sat on the edge of the bed, removed her jacket, and lay down facing the wall.
"I'm going to sleep," she said.
Her voice was calm, as though the night had left little for her to think about.
Hikari remained seated on the other side of the bed.
She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
It didn't work.
Her thoughts were far too crowded.
Thoughts about Arou.
About this world.
About what Lumina had said earlier.
After several minutes, she opened her eyes again and quietly sat up, careful not to wake Lumina.
Her gaze wandered around the room before settling on a small drawer beside the bed.
Curiosity stirred within her.
Slowly, she pulled it open.
Several sheets of paper rested inside.
They weren't organized. It looked as though they had been written down and tucked away without any intention of being read again.
Hikari hesitated before picking one up.
The handwriting was familiar.
It belonged to Arou.
She began reading.
The pages spoke of dreams.
Of loneliness.
Of names that did not exist in reality, yet somehow felt more alive than anything else in his world.
As she continued reading, her chest tightened.
"...Dad."
The word escaped her lips as little more than a whisper.
Only then did she truly realize something.
Arou had not only kept memories of them inside his mind.
He had preserved them in the most private corners of his life.
Carefully, she returned the paper to the drawer and closed it.
Then she lay back down.
Her eyes remained open.
In the darkness of the room, she no longer felt like a guest.
She felt as though she had been left behind.
And at the same time...
waited for.
---
Morning arrived quietly.
Arou woke up on the sofa with a lingering heaviness in his body.
For a few moments, he simply sat there staring at the ceiling.
Last night had felt far too real to be just a dream.
Eventually, he stood and headed toward his room.
The door opened slowly.
The bed was empty.
No Lumina.
No Hikari.
The sheets were perfectly neat, as though nobody had touched them.
The pillows sat exactly where they had always been.
Arou froze.
"Eh... where did they go?" he murmured.
He stepped closer and placed a hand on the bed.
Cold.
There wasn't even a trace of warmth left behind.
His chest tightened.
"Were they just... hallucinations?"
His gaze swept across the room.
The desk.
The drawer.
Everything looked exactly the same as usual.
There was no sign that anyone had spent the night there.
Slowly, Arou sat on the edge of the bed and lowered his head.
A thought he desperately wanted to reject began creeping into his mind.
Maybe last night had been nothing more than another extension of his own imaginary world.
But just as he was about to stand, something caught his eye.
Something he didn't remember leaving there.
Something small.
Yet undeniably real.
Arou stared at it for several seconds.
Then he quietly looked away.
He didn't investigate further.
He didn't ask any more questions.
Instead, he left the room.
After washing his face and putting on his school uniform, he grabbed his bag and prepared to leave.
Before stepping outside, he glanced toward his room one last time.
Nothing had changed.
The room remained silent.
Empty.
Arou closed the door and headed to school.
The streets were already filled with the sounds of morning.
People passed by.
Cars rolled along the road.
Conversations echoed from every direction.
Yet all of it felt strangely distant.
As though he were walking alone in a world that was far too crowded.
One question continued repeating itself in his mind.
Did last night really happen?
Or was it simply a dream refusing to fade away?
Carrying that uncertainty with him, he continued toward school.
---
The school gates were already open when he arrived.
Students entered in groups, chatting and laughing with one another.
Arou ignored them all.
Inside Class 2-A, the atmosphere was just as lively.
Several classmates greeted him.
Others glanced at him curiously.
He responded to none of them.
Instead, he walked to his desk and sat down.
The teacher had not arrived yet.
The bell had not rung either.
His thoughts were still somewhere else.
After a while, he opened his bag to take out a textbook.
His fingers brushed against something unfamiliar.
A folded piece of paper.
Arou frowned.
Slowly, he pulled it out and unfolded it.
The handwriting wasn't his.
A single message was written across the page.
We haven't disappeared.
We just can't always stay by your side.
Arou's breath caught in his throat.
His eyes immediately dropped to the bottom corner.
There, drawn in a few simple strokes, was a symbol he knew all too well.
A symbol that always appeared at the end of the dream game.
Zata's symbol.
His fingers tightened around the paper.
His heartbeat quickened.
If everything had been a hallucination, reality shouldn't have left evidence behind.
Yet the note existed.
It was real.
And it was in his hands.
The classroom bell suddenly rang.
The sharp sound pulled him back to reality.
But his thoughts had already moved elsewhere.
Toward a conclusion he wasn't ready to accept.
The dream...
had never truly ended.
---
The rest of the morning passed in a blur.
Arou barely paid attention to the lessons.
Every few minutes, his eyes drifted toward his bag, making sure the note was still there.
When lunch break arrived, he remained seated.
Instead of joining his classmates, he pulled out his phone.
Lumina.
No useful results.
Hikari.
Far too many results.
None of them meant anything.
After a moment, he closed the search engine and opened his personal notes instead—the place where he used to record details from his dreams.
Dates.
Names.
Conversations.
Events.
One by one, he reviewed the entries.
The longer he read, the stronger the strange feeling became.
Something wasn't right.
The descriptions of Lumina and Hikari didn't resemble ordinary dream characters.
They were consistent.
They remembered things.
They possessed perspectives independent of his own.
Sometimes, they even seemed to know things that Arou himself had forgotten.
"That isn't normal," he muttered.
The realization left a chill running down his spine.
As lunch break neared its end, he left the classroom and headed toward the library.
The library was quiet.
Almost empty.
He wandered through the shelves until he reached the archive section containing old school records and student lists.
He didn't expect to find anything.
Still, he searched.
Page after page passed before something finally caught his attention.
Not Lumina.
Not Hikari.
A handwritten note scribbled in the margin of an old record.
Arou froze.
The message read:
Recurring imaginary subject.
Emotional response stable.
Observer: Z.
His hands trembled slightly as he stared at the words.
"Z..."
Slowly, he closed the book.
If Lumina and Hikari were only dreams, then this note shouldn't exist.
And if Zata was merely a product of his imagination...
Then who had written it?
The distant sound of the bell echoed through the library.
Arou remained standing between the silent bookshelves, unable to move.
At that moment, he realized something.
He was no longer the only one dreaming about another world.
Now, the real world itself was beginning to hide secrets about him.