The setting sun shone through the large windows of the apartment, casting its rays on two sofas standing opposite each other, with a small glass table between them.
"Hey, Mami," Said a girl in light green hoodie laying on one of them and watching the ceiling.
The blonde Magi sitting across from her didn't respond, absorbed in her book. Something about an Owl Bridge.
"Hey, Mami!" She called out once again, now turning to face her.
"Yes?" Asked the other girl, but still didn't look at her.
"What's your favorite colour?"
"Are you bored?" Questioned back Mami.
"No, why? I'm just curious."
"Then start writing that essay we were given, or revise for that test tomorrow."
"Why? I'll just cheat that off you." Said the redhead, taking another chocolate cookie out of the bowl on the table.
"Yellow." The Magi sighed, unwilling to provoke another argument shortly before another patrol.
"And you know what's mine?" Asked Kyoko again, attempting to spark a longer conversation.
"Red?" The blonde guessed. Out of all the options this seemed to her like the most likely one.
"You think that because I have red hair and I wear a red dress?" Chuckled the other Magi.
"No, I actually quite like blue. Blue like the sea. Have you ever been to the seaside?"
"Once." answered Mami perfunctorily, still focused first and foremost on the text before her.
"I never got to go. Wish I did." said the red-haired girl, looking out the window. "I'd love to walk the beach, listen to the waves…" she began daydreaming. "Blue… blue is such a calm colour, isn't it?"
"Hmm, calmness is something you could use." remarked the other girl while turning a page.
"I'm a very calm person" pouted Kyoko.
"Yes, apart from those moments when you aren't."
The conversation foundered, and the room grew a little darker, as if a giant cloud had all of a sudden blotted out the sun.
Kyoko reached for another cookie, but surprisingly, her hand found nothing but an empty air that was now filling the bowl. But she could have sworn that just a second ago there were two more cookies there.
"You've been getting those dreams very often lately, haven't you?" The blonde Magi broke the silence, but her voice sounded strange now, akin more to a whisper than a normal speech.
"What do you mean?"
"Ever since you came back to Mitakihara you keep dreaming about us." she explained. "About all the things we used to do together, even those conversations we had all about nothing. Why are you so desperate to hold onto those moments?"
Kyoko sat up on the couch. Deep down she felt something strange. A faint sense of dread and confusion.
"I don't understand." She said.
"You're dreaming Kyoko. Everything here is but a dream." Replied Mami matter-of-factly, flipping another page.
"A dream? No, it's not a dream." Denied Kyoko. "This is reality."
"It's a dream."
"This is not a dream!" The redhead protested even harder.
"It's all your dream." Repeated Mami once again with the same monotone voice.
"I. am-"
She started, but then realized her partner had a point. Lots of things didn't just add up. Clocks reading nonsense, cookies disappearing, no recollection of what happened earlier this day… Yes, everything around her was a dream. It wasn't real. Not anymore…
"It's not your world anymore, Kyoko. Yours lies behind that door and beyond this apartment."
And it was with those worlds that the thread was pulled. The rest of the realization set in quickly, smashing through the barrier of denial and dispelling the confusion. The reality was that Mami was dead. Dead because of her, because she ran away one of those nights and never returned. Had she stayed with her she could have done something on that day, protect her from that Witch...
"I don't want to leave. I already ran away once." Replied Kyoko. "I don't want to lose you again." She begged, her voice cracking.
"The past is final. You can't swim the rivers long dried." Sounded the reply, tearing at the redhead's heart.
The room lit up again, growing brighter than before- and blurry.
"I'm sorry about what happened. I would have given anything to change it." She said after a while, hoping that perhaps, this could be the spell, the magical words that would reverse it all and allow her to dream on, dream about the times and lives long gone.
"I know. But that doesn't mean a thing now, does it?" Her tone shifted, sounding of sadness, yet at the same time the acknowledgement of the cold and inarguable facts.
Silence descended upon the place once more. They could have talked a lot more, about many other things, for a much longer time, but they both knew it- there actually wasn't anything more to say now.
Mami Tomoe finally lifted up her gaze from the book, looking into the other Magi's eyes.
"You have to let it go." She said in her usual tone, polite yet firm. "You have someone else to protect now.
"How do you know?" Kyoko looked at her surprised. "You had never–"
"Lady must have her secrets." She smiled mysteriously. "It would be very rude to leave her alone, don't you think?"
Kyoko nodded without a word, feeling her throat tightening.
"Farewell, Kyoko." said Mami.
"Does that mean that…?" Replied the redhead, but did not dare finish the sentence, the implication of it being too terrible all in itself.
"We'll meet again one day. I promise." The response calmed her down somewhat. Mami-san promises were always watertight.
The golden-haired girl snapped the book shut. Brightness flooded the apartment, white as a view from a window on a wintry morning.
She wanted to leap, throw herself at her, hold her tight and never let her go, but the floor escaped her feet. She started falling, as if the whole place existed in a limbo, a weird place between the worlds.
Kyoko awoke, sitting up in bed. Outside the window the sun had yet to break through the gray clouds of early dawn, leaving the room still in partial darkness.
Still confused from waking up so suddenly she struggled to remember where she was, until she looked around. A girl with short blue hair was sleeping by her side, with her naked back turned.
Everything had now become clear. She was in Sayaka's Miki bed, in her house. They had the place all to themselves last night and well…
Cold air brushed against her skin, reminded her she too was wearing nothing. Realizing that she lay down again and covered herself with the shared blanket.
Still wanting for more warmth and companionship she slid closer to the sleeping Magi and put arms around her waist, pulling her in.
You were right Mami.
I still have someone I can't let down...