Aion exited the library mashed together with the museum and saw the sun was setting. A girl stood against a tree, seemingly waiting. She looked up at Aion and smiled.
"Aion, how did it go?" Luna asked cheerfully.
"It sounds like Alexander has it all covered," Aion replied.
"That's good. Will you be staying for the festival?"
"He said that I would, yeah."
Luna nodded. "I'm sure you'll love it. You'll also see some real miracles in action!"
Aion internally groaned.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm sure that I'll have an answer for them just like the propositions you gave."
Luna just giggled and said nothing as she began walking, gesturing to Aion to follow.
The two walked along the snow-covered path, a light crunching noise resounding with each step. The silence was nice. Pleasant even. Aion took a moment to take in his surroundings. Because of the setting sun, the snow and ice in the houses and trees all glimmered, creating a memorable sight. It was enough to make Aion inhale at its luster. To think he felt this way about seeing something like this in person, the irony was basically writing itself. He could almost hear a voice bugging him about it.
"Something amusing you?" Luna asked.
"Was it showing on my face? Or are you just making assumptions?" Aion asked, turning his gaze toward her countenance.
"It showed on your face."
"I don't believe you; you're probably making things up."
"Wow, how rude."
"It's the truth."
Luna scoffed and said, "Seeing you like this makes me think your politeness from earlier even stranger."
"I had to be nice to a stranger."
"Aren't we strangers?" Luna asked, her expression blank.
"You're someone I understand well."
"No, you don't," Luna said, her expression unchanging.
"I don't know; you seem like a rather simple-minded person."
Luna frowned and said, "I can't believe you just said that."
"I said it, so you can be in disbelief all you want, but it's ultimately fruitless."
Luna sighed, and her expression became cheerful again. "So, Alexander has set up a place you can stay."
"Already?"
"Yeah, he did some time ago, maybe half an hour ago?"
That would line up with when he was making tea, so he probably contacted whoever he needed to during that time. That seemed like the most likely conclusion in Aion's thoughts.
"He's a good guy," Aion began. "Still strange, though."
"You think so too, huh?"
"Oh? You noticed? I didn't think that was possible."
Luna gave a side-eye and said, "He's not really that well liked by the village. And, I think at least, that made him so strange in comparison to everyone else."
"You're just telling me this?"
"You said he was a good guy. That's enough for me to say something. If he could get along well with others, that would be great."
Aion was silent, mulling over her words carefully. This wasn't something that a half-hearted reply would get anywhere with.
"I would like that, although I am leaving in a little over a week, so I can't really promise much."
Luna smiled sadly and said, "I'm aware. But one week of friendship—couldn't that go a long way?"
Aion didn't say anything. Realistically speaking, he couldn't say anything substantial. Friendship—it wasn't anything he had the right to talk about.
"If you say so."
"That's a rather dry response. Is there something wrong with what I said?"
"No, nothing at all."
Luna's mood seemed to worsen as she looked ahead.
"Hey…" Luna said quietly.
"Hm? What's up?"
"Your politeness," Luna started, as she turned to look straight into Aion's eyes. An abnormally serious expression was on her face as she continued, "Is that the real you?"
A wind blew past, like a scene from a movie or show, making her hood fly off and releasing her long white hair. Flowing gently in the wind, strands crossed over her ruby eyes; despite that, her expression remained the same.
"What makes you ask? Politeness is generally something that should be part of a person's character," Aion said as he looked away.
"Part of…someone's character?" She said slowly, a faint sense of melancholy in her expression as she tightened her lips.
"What?"
Then, the wind stopped—bringing silence.
"If politeness is so important, why are you rude to me?"
Aion stared silently, not answering. A blank expression, nothing more, nothing less. That was the only thing he showed as he stared at her.
However—his eyes, oh, his eyes told a wholly different tale.
"I was simply overwhelmed when we first met," he said, turning away to avoid her expression. "And so, in my panic, I was rude. I apologize if I offended you. However, none of my comments are meant to be mean-spirited. I suppose I'll stop if you want."
Aion, after finishing his small apology, turned to see Luna once more. Her face made him open his mouth in surprise as he saw her fighting back tears.
"Ah…" Luna, realizing what she was doing, turned away and furiously wiped her face. "Sorry, I don't know what came over me. Please pardon me for a moment…"
Aion obliged as he looked at her sad frame. In the end, Luna didn't give an answer one way or the other.
* * *
The place he was staying was rather small, a single room downstairs that housed the kitchen and dining room, and above it on the second floor housed two bedrooms and a bathroom. Aion quickly chose the room on the end to reside in and flopped onto the bed.
Crystal Machinations… Was I really in that world? Aion thought.
He had shoved the contemplation over that fact off until he found a place to carefully ruminate over the idea. And now that he was here, he struggled to begin. Where exactly should he begin? Realistically, there probably wasn't a best starting place. And if there was, he was too narrow-minded to see it. What he wanted most of all was just to say it was a dream and call it a day until he rose from his slumber.
And yet…
Aion touched the wall of his room, feeling the cool sensation against his skin. The world around him felt so alive—so real. He had claimed it was merely a dream early on without putting much thought into it, simply going with an easy answer to the inexplicable experience he was going through. It was an easy, comforting belief.
Furthermore, he was consciously believing this was a dream—would that not imply that it wasn't a dream? After all, the frontal cortex of the brain is less active during a dream, impairing the ability to recognize a dream as a dream until waking. Then perhaps it was a lucid dream? He had heard a while back that lucid dreams didn't always have the dreamer control the narrative of the dream; thus, even the lack of control over this world could be explained.
Still, a lucid dream? Was that even possible for him? In his life, he's never experienced a lucid dream, and even his own dreams weren't all that detailed. More often than not, they were merely horrific or static experiences that seemed to repeat like a glitching screen, jumping back time and time again. The few fantastical dreams he had experienced and remembered were, in the simplest sense of the word, more fantastical.
But can a metric be placed on dreams? A measurable and repeatable sense of what an individual's dream entails seemed outside of the realm of possibility. As far as he was aware, the existence of dreams and their purpose was still in contention. But did that mean patterns for a singular individual were impossible to find? He wasn't sure. He never did much research into dreams in his life. And now, he felt regret in not doing so despite the fact that he could've never predicted this situation.
Going under the premise that he was living in a lucid dream, couldn't he simply force himself awake? He had heard a few methods at one point because he wanted to try and lucid dream in the past but never succeeded. So, he began trying.
First, with repeated opening and closing of his eyes, then trying to feel his body in the real world, and even spinning around to break the stability of the dream world, all failed and only caused him to fall down and hit his knee, causing a sharp pain that still didn't wake him up. Perhaps he merely needed to fall asleep?
If that was the solution, he couldn't do anything yet. Despite having been much more active than in his daily life, he still didn't find himself feeling exhausted. He knew better than to try to force it. If he didn't feel tired, he would be trying to fall asleep for hours on end. Before he was free to choose his own bedtime, he often lay in bed for hours trying to fall asleep. In the end, he started to read books in his room at night with a small light to make it seem like he was asleep. He had read many works at the time; some he quite enjoyed, and some he quite disliked. Generally, he would end up finishing each book within a couple of days, which usually ended up with him reading things that would be allowed by his mom.
Those memories made Aion form a small smile on his face as he looked back on them. In those days, his reading was some of the most fun he had. To find himself in another world entirely—it was a very enjoyable experience. At the time, he hadn't found anything that profoundly impacted him, but he had fun regardless. At the time, whether the story was something beautiful or not was important to him. As long as he enjoyed his time, he was happy. A simple yet fragile feeling—so easily lost with time.
In a way, this world he was in, if it were real, would it not be a dream come true? To live within the world of fiction, to see, to hear, and to feel the world around him—was it not exactly what he longed for in those works all that time ago? But such wishful delusions were meaningless. The fictional world and the real world were separate. To live within a fictional world would never happen; it was only a matter of time before he rose from whatever delusion or dream he was having.
Isekais, reincarnations, dreamworlds—all of it was nothing but a hopeless escapist fantasy. A fantasy that he could never grasp for himself because it was intangible—imaginary. Admittedly, he would say that, of course, part of him deep down always hoped for something fictional to happen in his life. But he knew it was merely a passing fancy of his. It wasn't anything that would last a while. Much like the passing of life—they come and go.
Perhaps his abject rejection of anything fantastical happening in his life was why he claimed this was all a dream. But was that wrong? Was he simply stubborn? If someone were to find themselves in another world—a world of a novel they knew from their past life—would they not also be skeptical? In Aion's experience, characters from isekais often accept that they're in another world rather quickly. Rarely giving much thought to whether they are actually in another world. Could it not be a dream? Even though it feels so real, lucid dreaming exists.
So why do they accept being isekai'd so fast? Why don't they reject the fantastical? Most likely it was just plot convenience. With how many low-quality isekais that exist, it wouldn't surprise him. And on top of that, it helps the author move onto more important ideas for their work. So, in a way he could understand. Logically he could find a reason. But, emotionally, he couldn't. It was a stupid thing to latch onto. And of course, he never made a big deal about it. So actually experiencing something as strange as this probably triggered the thoughts to rise and occupy his mind more densely.
Then, wouldn't accepting this world as an isekai be simpler? Would he not enjoy himself more? Would he not find happiness? After all, he was living a dream he'd suppressed for so long.
Aion, who had been sitting on the bed for a while now, looked at the ceiling.
If accepting this world as my new life would make me happy, should I not take it? And if I did, and it still ended up as a dream, would it not matter in the end? If abject rejection of a reality leads to failing to connect with others, is it best for me to accept it all? So then why do I still reject it all? Why do I insist it's all a dream? I don't get anything by rejection—simply an ephemeral sense of self-satisfaction if I'm right. But what if I'm wrong? Then what? I stay in this world desperately trying to escape the new reality I live in?
Oftentimes, I wonder why I stubbornly refuse to follow certain beliefs. In the end, my beliefs aren't all that meaningful. So, abandoning my beliefs shouldn't be problematic; it should be easy—understandable even. If the beliefs I hold barely define me as a person, why hold them? Why cling to them as if they are? The 'me' that believes this world is an isekai and the 'me' that believes this world isn't an isekai—what ultimate difference is there between us? The answer is quite simple: one is happier than the other. Logically speaking, I should follow the path that makes me happier. The path that grants me release from the stress of proving that this world is a dream—all for the sake of my own pride.
That's probably exactly it, isn't it? Pride. That simple but profoundly complex word. My pride prevents me from simply accepting something I had rejected for so long. To accept it would be synonymous with rejecting the 'me' I have built for so long. I am prideful over a superfluous notion. The 'me' that exists now and the 'me' that exists in the possible acceptance are so similar yet so fundamentally different.
This world is a dream.
This world is fiction.
Two sides of the same 'me,' two different feelings, and two different worlds. Thus, I can say: this world is a dream.
This world must be a dream.
No matter what our current understanding of existence says, it stands that what I am experiencing right now isn't outside the world of possibility.
However, I cannot explain this logically, I cannot accept this emotionally, and I cannot align this ideologically. Thus, I can say with conviction:
This world is a dream.