Chapter 96: Meeting In A Dream
Keio University, Hiyoshi Campus.
About an hour’s drive, Hoshihara Ai paid over 13,000 yen for the taxi fare.
Deep inside the research building, this is a neuroscience laboratory.
Her high school friend from back then, Kobayashi Aoi, now a neuroscience professor in the medical department at Keio University, along with her three graduate students Takahashi Yui, Suzuki Haruka, and Anna Inoue, had already prepared the equipment.
Hoshihara Ai’s main purpose was to monitor her brainwave data and such when entering the dream.
They had already exchanged details beforehand, so after Hoshihara Ai entered, she got straight to the point.
Hoshihara Ai walked to the center of the laboratory,
where there was a single bed, and on the low cabinet beside the bed was a helmet-shaped device covered with sensors, next to which were several vital signs monitoring devices like electrocardiogram and blood oxygen saturation, with all the cables ultimately converging on the workstation.
Hoshihara Ai lay down on the bed, Kobayashi Aoi guided her from the side, and her three students put the helmet filled with brainwave monitoring electrodes on her.
Then came the heart rate patches, blood oxygen clips…
One by one, the sensors were properly placed on various parts of Hoshihara Ai’s body.
The next task was simple: just take a nap.
As the laboratory door was gently closed, only the faint hum of the instruments running remained in her ears.
In such an environment, with various equipment connected to her body, an ordinary person would probably have a hard time falling asleep.
But Hoshihara Ai had no problem.
She closed her eyes, emptied her mind, felt her consciousness floating in the void, and fell asleep within a few minutes.
……
Before her eyes was a void of darkness, gradually, a faint light brightened up.
Hoshihara Ai opened her eyes and looked around joyfully.
Success, the first attempt and she entered this familiar dream.
Confirming her location, it was on the bed in the apartment.
Beside her, a young man was lying on his side facing her, with his eyes tightly closed.
Sakamoto Ken.
She had entered similar dreams before, and these dreams all had one thing in common: she was in this scene, watching the whole thing from her own first-person perspective.
Possessing vision, hearing, touch, and even any sensation of the body.
Just like her current consciousness had returned to herself on another timeline, experiencing it together with her.
After getting slightly accustomed, the whole process felt seamless, without any tearing sensation.
Her consciousness merged as one with the consciousness of this body; as long as she let go and enjoyed it, it was no different from controlling the body herself.
Now she also confirmed the current scene.
On that noon a month ago, it was as if she had lived a complete life, and this was one of the moments.
At her home, together with him.
Next, I should lift the quilt to check on this guy, right?
Hoshihara Ai thought this in her mind, and sure enough, her body moved on its own.
She gently lifted the quilt.
Both of them were cool and bare.
Hoshihara Ai gently put down the quilt and slowly extended her hand.
The back of her finger paused less than one centimeter from the young man’s cheek, feeling the warm breath emanating from his skin.
Sakamoto Ken was completely in a soft, deep sleep state.
At this moment, the young man’s tightly closed eyes suddenly opened.
Their eyes met.
Hoshihara Ai did not dodge; instead, she smiled slightly at him.
Then, without any words, Sakamoto Ken reached out his arm, wrapped around her waist, pulled her whole body over, and held her in his warm embrace.
Sakamoto Ken’s face buried in the nook of her neck, his hot breath brushing over her skin, bringing her a subtle tingling sensation.
Although he had closed his eyes again, pretending to sleep couldn’t be hidden; Hoshihara Ai hugged him tightly.
What was I thinking at the time?
Hoshihara Ai carefully recalled and found the corresponding memory in that segment.
Hmm… I was thinking, it’s early in the morning, so no need to waste it.
So, next, Hoshihara Ai wrapped herself around Sakamoto Ken.
The air conditioner in the room was set very low, but they were still sweating profusely.
It wasn’t until over half an hour later that Hoshihara Ai finally let him off temporarily, satisfied.
She lazily sat on Sakamoto Ken’s lap, her hands around the back of his neck, carefully examining his face.
His eyebrows and eyes, his nose bridge, the curve at the corner of his lips, all exactly the same as in her memory.
This experience was very magical; the scene from memory replayed, and she appreciated it from beginning to end.
The most apt metaphor was like watching a movie, with her own perspective bound to the heroine’s body, fully sharing the heroine’s sensations.
This kind of experience was completely different from the dream she entered during her last nap.
During the last nap, she also met A Jian in the dream, but she could move freely, and A Jian’s reactions did not follow the plot from memory.
Hoshihara Ai discovered that when “herself” turned to look out the window, she focused her mind, wanting to see the outline of Tokyo Tower in the distance clearly.
She could only see the general shape, with no details at all.
Then she looked at a book on the bedside table, wanting to read the text on the cover, but found the text blurred like it had mosaics, twisted together and indistinguishable.
This was exactly the same as that segment of “future” memory in her mind.
She could clearly see Sakamoto Ken’s face, but apart from that, almost everything else was shrouded in thick fog.
It was as if the computing power of this world was limited, with all resources allocated to him; things less related to him were blurrier.
Hoshihara Ai immediately confirmed that the dream she was in now, although also meeting Sakamoto Ken like the one during her last nap, was fundamentally different.
But to pinpoint the exact difference, she would have to wait until she woke up and check the monitoring data from this time.
However, since she was already here…
As soon as she had this thought, her body, as expected, gave Sakamoto Ken a mischievous smile, leaned down, and kissed him.
……
“Ding ding ding ding! Ding ding ding ding!”
The alarm clock rang, and Hoshihara Ai felt a slight sense of detachment; now, as long as she focused her attention on the alarm sound, she could exit the dream.
Just like in the dream during her last nap, the sound seemed to come from all directions.
She originally wanted to wait for the alarm to stop automatically and continue enjoying the dream, but considering that Takahashi Yui and the others, as well as Kobayashi Aoi, would come to the laboratory soon.
If she did so many intense actions in the dream, and her body lying on the bed in reality also moved restlessly, it would be embarrassing if they saw.
With a thought, Hoshihara Ai focused her energy on the bell sound; everything before her eyes began to distort and quickly turned into darkness.
After a while, Hoshihara Ai woke up from her deep sleep.
