It’s a real 1v7 for control. Kurugaya held off a world of multiple dreams. What starts out as a simple wish for emotional attachment and understanding transcends everything. Her’s is a wish that changes the world, a wish powerful enough to stand above other wishes. It’s the good old power of love.
That’s just the mechanics of the story though. There’s actually something far more valuable (or at the very least something more interesting) gained from Refrain and after.
At the end of the Visual Novel the gang wait through Summer for Kyousuke to leave the hospital. The kids only vaguely remember their time in the fake world, barring the guys and Kurugaya who appear to remember. During the Kurugaya true route we learn that Riki remembers some things about the false world during this time. Once Kyousuke returns they set off on a summer trip, detailed in Bokura no Asa. This little story tells us that Riki is definitely aware of the fake world at this point in time. He doesn’t remember certain things (such as Rin and Komari’s friendship) but he knows of the dream world to some degree. Not only does this give us a somewhat decent grasp of Riki’s mental recovery, but it gives us an idea of what could happen in future, and affirms that he is indeed recovering lost memories, even if they are memories of a dream.
After the trip, the Busters head back to school for the Fall season. If we go by the Kurugaya True End, during this season, Riki makes do on a promise he remembered having made with Kurugaya. That if the two remembered their feelings, she’d be the one to confess. And so Kurugaya confesses. We don’t see Riki’s reaction, or anything about Riki really, so there is no OTP to be had here, but the act of the confession is important when looking at the nature of the dream world. Kurugaya’s problem was her inability to express herself. This is a problem she kept to some degree throughout her route. Her confession marks the moment she finally achieved her goal.
If the world existed to grant wishes, and Kurugaya’s wishes have only just been granted, then they might still be in the dream world until this point. It could also be argued that simply being given the capability to grant one’s own wish is enough for the world to end. Hard to say which is true. When does the dream world actually cease to exist? It’s so hard to tell, and for as long as the Little Busters exist together, it’ll be impossible to say the dream has ended. Poor Riki will be living a life of doubts for some time.
Nevertheless, I think one big charm of the route is that it doesn’t just resolve at the end. It spans beyond the route, it spans beyond the VN’s “ending” and it gives a sense of future to a previously enclosed tale.
It’d be interesting to know if the decision to include such an ending was made by Tonokawa, Maeda, or someone else. I’ve noticed Maeda commonly include such a style of ending in his post-LB work.
