May 18th! The last day of the week, and the perfect day for some things to go terribly wrong!
This chapter gives me a lot of ammo for my theories, particularly my suspicions about dreams and repeating time periods. I don’t want to repeat myself so instead of just saying “here’s some evidence! here’s some more evidence!” I want to try and figure out who is sending the messages to Riki, who is trying to teach him about the secret of the world. Regardless of my answer I still haven’t exactly figured out the ‘why’ yet but bear with me…
The chapter opens very mysteriously, with Rin being only tagged as ‘Voice’ for the beginning of this scene. This in itself is highly suspicious, the message to ‘wake up’ doubly so. I’ve begun to notice that all the really important moments to Riki’s state of mind during this novel occur with no character sprite onscreen. There’s a fairly simple reason for this as it gives the reader nothing to focus on except the words being told to them, and the eyes have nowhere to focus on so it gives off a feeling of vulnerability. Anyway, I think this is Rin trying to get Riki to wake up from his coma, simple as that. Her intentions are pure and her method of communication is direct. Thus, I do not think she is the one delivering Riki the messages, unless there is something extremely well-hidden about her character underneath all the bubbly innocence.
Our next clue comes fairly quickly
So the entire cafeteria staff has disappeared right after receiving a task to save the cafeteria, this seems like some significant evidence for a timeloop theory, ala Groundhog Day. I assume that whoever is writing these messages is aware of Riki’s repeating of his memories, and wants to help him to break out. Why would I assume it’s someone close to Riki that we’ve already met? Because they’re using Rin’s cats to do it. It has to be someone that not only knows about Rin’s cat obsession and can locate her cats when she’s not around them, but someone that can also coax the cat into allowing them to attach the message to its tail without causing injury. ALSO it’s been the same cat every time so this definitely isn’t just a random prank. To that end, I believe the sender has to be one of the core five friends we are introduced to in the early part of the story, Riki, Rin, Kengo, Masato and Kyousuke. Out of the five I think we can discount Rin for the aforementioned reasons, Masato is too much of a comedic character to be responsible unless he’s a go-between for someone else, and unless Riki is influencing the world subconsciously in his coma state that only leaves us with two suspects.
Kengo and Kyousuke. Now, I haven’t discounted Kengo mainly because of the ‘scales fell from my eyes’ quote from earlier in the story, that would make sense as foreshadowing but unfortunately I haven’t been paying as much attention to him so far as the other characters. This would give him the perfect cover to be responsible, but i feel as though we don’t know what would motivate him other than just being a good friend (yet anyway).
The other suspect in this situation is Kyousuke and honestly he’s at the top of my list based on the way he’s been acting this entire story. He seems to be nowhere yet everywhere at the same, leaping through windows on the 3rd floor when a fight breaks out, always being there for club activities despite Riki never bumping into him anywhere in the school, he’s also the person who originally sent Riki to meet Rin when she had found the first mesage, and then this bombshell happened
Riki loses conscious due to his narcolepsy in the middle of talking with Kyousuke and His contact point with the world was severed. I think you can all tell what I’m thinking, this signifies a transition from this world to another, I was honestly expecting an image of a hospital bed but instead we get this:
Orange glow indicating a nostalgic memory, no sprite for Kyousuke at all during this scene, and at the end an extremely abrupt cut back to regular life where Riki meets up with Masato. We are also giving the extremely specific detail that “Kyousuke’s hands are softer than Masato’s”. Man, this scene has to be incredibly important. I’ve been speculating on the importance of Kyousuke for a while now and this scene tells me I’m poking at the right bits of the narrative. I think there’s something wrong with Kyousuke’s appearance in Riki’s mind, maybe he was killed in front of Riki or maybe just the shock of seeing Kyousuke when he grew to be much older ruined his perception of him, either way Kyousuke is clearly a role model for him. I think that if this is a series of memories that Riki is using to keep himself safe and happy then it makes sense for his ‘memory’ of Kyousuke to be the one that’s guiding Riki and Rin to the secret.
I have some further crackpot theories about Riki and Kyousuke maybe having switched places in this narrative we’re being told or something funky going on with their ages in his memory (maybe Kyousuke actually is the same age as them but the age Riki remembers him at is the age he suffered the traumatic event) i have little to no basis for these except Kurugaya’s words:
Clearly Riki has trouble with his own self-perception,even though Kyousuke is the leader of the group it’s Riki and his understanding character that pulls everyone in. I don’t know how deep this narrative goes but Kurugaya continues to be perceptive, which is nice.
Other points of highlight include: The cafeteria game, which i was terrible at, apparently 20 points was the passing mark and I got 19 (rip). Kyousuke losing to Komari and gaining the title “I lost to Komari-chan” which honestly was the best moment in this chapter for me, Kyousuke is never going to live this down… and the return of this beautiful muffin
Which yes, I thought that’s what was going on too Riki, she really is impossible to read. I wonder if you might perhaps have a better time of understanding her through some sort of narrative? Some sort of work of fiction she might use for self-expression and to communicate her truest self to others, something you can approach in order to discover her heart… If only such a thing existed 
She also seems to be very connected with nature, sheltering herself underneath a Zelkova tree, a tree that is often used in bonsai, a form of artistic expression through plant growth and very much something that should be admired and not touched except by the artist’s hand lest you mar its beauty. Her hands in the previous chapter were described as maple leaves and her eyes are compared to “subdued amber” fosslized tree rezin that most famously hardens around animal and plant material and forever preserves it.
Interesting that she is referred to this way, I hate to continue talking about colour again but wasn’t that ‘other world’ that Kyousuke spoke to Riki in a similar ‘subdued amber’ colour? Let me know what you all think. Have I truly gone mad? Or am I on the cusp of uncovering the Secret of the World? Tune in next time to see how off the rails I can go!
(oh and also Haruka and the disciplinary head might be sisters, call it a hunch )
EDIT: As a final piece of evidence for my ‘Kyousuke culprit theory’ I’ve been notified by @Echo that Lennon was the cat first thrown into Masato and Kengo’s duel at the beginning of the game by kyousuke. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Lennon turned out to be Kyousuke’s cat all along. Here’s the message log from May 14th:
I knew nothing else about Little Busters other than it involved baseball. My expectations were and are extremely high; this was the last Key novel that wasn’t a spin off I had left to read. As such, it’s hard for me not to compare it to Key’s other works like Clannad or Rewrite. I expected a typical Key novel; down to earth life lessons wrapped in the dancing ribbons of beauty and tragedy, another shard of fiction that would pierce my soul and enrich my life, as they always have. Time will tell if I am correct.
