"Yay, yay! I finally did it with Alain~"
In the lounge, Miluo gently hummed the tune from the sheet music. Within her lovely, captivating voice, however, the lyrics made Alain's blood run cold.
"Should I write a song about this?"
"...Don't."
Alain quickly stopped her. If word of this got out, even in the dream world, his reputation would be utterly ruined.
However...
Alain looked at the excited girl, a crescent moon of a smile on her lips.
Thankfully, Miluo's knowledge of that sort of thing was still quite shallow. He figured she thought a kiss, maybe with a bit of tongue, was all there was to it.
Not taking that final step... was a truly precious stroke of luck.
He really didn't want to get thrown back in jail right after his good buddy broke him out, forced to sing "Tears Behind Iron Bars" all over again.
Heh. Kids are so easy to handle.
"Alain!" Just then, Miluo seemed to think of something, and her humming stopped. She looked at him with a hint of panic,
"We didn't use any protection! Um... could I be pregnant?"
She caressed her flat stomach, her eyes filled with a certain sentimentality,
"Although I'd be happy to have a child with Alain... can I still be an idol if I'm pregnant? Ah!"
His mouth twitched. He had just been thinking she was easy to handle... and now this kid was asking him such a difficult question.
She clapped her hands sharply, her inquisitive gaze fixed on Alain,
"Alain! You don't like watermelon bellies, do you? If I get a watermelon belly, will you still—"
"This is getting even more difficult."
"...I'll like you. No matter what you become, I'll still like you. Happy now? Please just stop talking for a bit."
"Okay~"
Hearing Alain's reply, the girl felt much more at ease.
Looking into the young man's eyes, she belatedly thought of something and patted the hand Alain had placed over her lips.
"?"
Alain let go, only to see Miluo skip over to the small table.
She picked up the sheet music and handed it to Alain.
"Here, Alain!"
"?"
He had never studied music theory, and his university major wasn't music-related either.
But seeing Miluo's encouraging gaze, he took the music sheets and began to look through them.
The music was printed on A4-sized paper and consisted of three pages. Below each line of the musical staff were lyrics with varying spacing.
He gently flipped a page, and a piece of paper fell out from between the sheets, fluttering down onto the edge of the bed like an autumn leaf.
Alain picked up the paper and observed it closely in his hand. He looked at the watercolor paint, lost in thought.
Then, he took out the pieces he had previously obtained and began to assemble them on the bed. He used the glue he had borrowed from Millie to stick the fragments together...
Just as he thought.
He mused to himself.
The sheet music Miluo had given him contained another piece of what appeared to be Ghostly Mita's character texture.
Added to the three he already had, he now possessed a total of four fragments.
Once the four pieces were glued together, they formed the image of a young girl with braided pigtails, smiling sweetly amidst a five-colored watercolor background.
Indigo hair and Mita's "factory-default outfit" completed the picture.
However, a triangular piece was still missing from the bottom-right corner of the picture.
Just as Alain had suspected, Ghostly Mita's character texture was made up of five pieces in total.
He was still one piece short.
"Miluo, how did you get this piece of paper?"
Miluo looked at the watercolor picture Alain showed her, her eyes filled with confusion.
"Oh? That's not what I wanted you to see, Alain. Besides, I have no memory of this drawing at all."
"Is that so..."
"...Is this a coincidence?"
"..."
No matter how he thought about it, that was impossible.
The four fragments of Ghostly Mita's texture that Alain now held were obtained from:
Sleepy Mita's room, Misha at City Hall, Millie at the detention center, and Miluo's sheet music.
This corresponded perfectly to the four Mitas he knew.
The pieces of Ghostly Mita's texture just happened to appear on these specific Mitas? It was almost too convenient for him.
It wasn't... random at all.
It was likely that upon arriving in the dream world's Mita City, he was meant to meet these specific people.
Were the fragments placed along his necessary path? Was this Sleepy Mita's doing?
Alain's gaze fell on the single missing corner of the picture.
The last piece of the character texture was still missing. He wondered if it was with Sleepy Mita...
If it truly followed the pattern of "Mitas he knew," then that would have to be the case.
For now, it was just a hypothesis. But assuming this hypothesis was correct...
He definitely had to go see Sleepy Mita.
"Miluo, what about your hint?"
"Hint? What hint? I don't know anything about that~" Miluo shook her head as if she knew nothing, but her eyes nonchalantly flickered toward the lyrics.
Alain understood. The clue was in the sheet music.
His eyes scanned the first page but couldn't make sense of it. He was about to focus on the second page.
"No, no, Sir Knight, I want you to see—if there are any problems with my first seven lines of lyrics?"
"The first seven lines? Alright."
With that hint, he focused his gaze on the first to the seventh lines of the lyrics.
"[0In desert sands, I promise to venture with you; our home collapses in a distant save file. Everyone says love is binary and balanced, but my heartbeat overflows all algorithms. A thousand rescues to frame your face; your virtual image makes my pupils burn. It's true we gaze at each other across dimensions.0]"
"..."
Alain rubbed the smooth paper, his gaze inevitably focusing on the girl's small face.
"?"
Miluo was puzzled, but Alain's sudden words made her blush.
"How could you write such sad lyrics? Haven't I been spending enough time with you?"
"S-Sir Knight, what are you talking about?! Of course not! Don't confuse the lyrics with the singer's personal life!"
She shook her head like a pellet drum and pointed at the lyrics,
"I wanted to ask you, don't the first characters of the lyrics fit together well?"
"Let me see..."
Alain then realized that the first character of each line of lyrics seemed to form a coherent phrase.
If you put the seven lines together...
"Everyone is the same."
"It seems you understand now, Sir Knight," Miluo said with a smile, earning a pat on the head from Alain.
"Thank you."
"Don't treat me like a kid! I'm Alain's woman now~"
"Alright, alright."
Alain mentally organized the hints he had received from the three girls.
Putting them together, it was:
Everyone desires a player, everyone is a Mita, everyone is the same.
The answer, then, was obvious.
"Miluo, can you help me get another Mita to come in here?"
Now that he had the answer, he could make his way toward Sleepy Mita.
He patted Miluo's head, planning to use her idol status to test his idea.
_____
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