…Yes, but I don’t think people who are on the verge of death anyway make that much difference between morals in the first place, especially not with how desperate Kyousuke can act when left with literally no other choices. 
2 Likes
I don’t think it’s nearly that well planned out or anything. The girls’ regrets manifest themselves in the world whether they want them to or not, and Kyousuke is good at making the best out of such situations to hit two birds with one stone.
3 Likes
As much as I disliked the heroine routes of Little Busters, I don’t believe they should be trivialized. They weren’t happenstance or a simple step. They were monumental changes in the lives of people, rivaling the changes to those of the core Litbus members. Yes they were part of a larger plan with an intended outcome, but that doesn’t mean the plan birthed the world.
The world doesn’t exist to help Riki and Rin, Little Busters does. The world exists to help these people come to terms with something in their lives, or experience something they never had the chance to experience in life. It exists to grant the wishes of those dreaming the world into existence. Kyousuke and the gang just saw this as an opportunity to help Riki and Rin cope with the loss of everyone.
But it did. That’s one of the biggest moments in the epilogue, seeing how it changed people. Sisters became friends, distant family became closer, and an emotional promise became a wistful hope. All of the regrets highlighted in the fake world were fixed by the time the fake world ended, and the world only ended as all wishes (including Riki’s trauma and Rin’s social issues) were granted.
What makes you say they were the only ones supposed to make it out? Everyone makes it out of the world alive, no matter what. Whether they continue to live after they make it out isn’t guaranteed, however we know 100% that people are still living when they exit the world. The only thing telling us that Riki and Rin were the only ones supposed to survive the upcoming explosion was Kyousuke, and we saw him stubbornly reject any other outcome in a depressed haze mid-way through Refrain. He isn’t all that reliable when it comes to information about the fake world. From what we actually see, there’s a good chance Riki and Rin still die, and there’s a fair chance that everybody lives regardless.
I’ve disagree’d with this earlier in my post, but I’ll highlight again that the world was not born from a goal of protecting Riki and Rin. The goal of protecting Riki and Rin was born from the second chance given by the world.
I don’t believe the world was created from death. I believe it was created from strong wishes. Super stressful moments such as the apparent inevitability of death would create such strong wishes, but I don’t think the fake world has death in mind. This isn’t Angel Beats.
There’s a saying that goes something like “everyone becomes religious when they’re about to die.” This is the same idea.
2 Likes
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.
8 Likes
In my replay of Mio’s route I stumbled upon something really interesting: the reason for the track “A World where Nothing Happened.”
As you all know, this track is representative of the fact that this world is not real. This world was man made, it is not organic, and while it may look natural, it truly isn’t. This track represents the eerie feeling of realizing that something… is off. It’s unsettling. The track mostly sounds like radio noise. And here, radio noise is mentioned. The radio noise is directly compared to the feeling that “nothing had happened.”
Interestingly enough, “A World where Nothing Happened” isn’t actually used in Mio’s route at all. It accurately describes the feeling the track gives, without actually playing the track. And this stage of the route is a few days after Mio is replaced by Midori. Something is obviously off at this point, but Riki doesn’t notice it until the next day when he sees the tanka book.
There’s actually a lot more I want to analyze with these screenshots later. Especially about the fact that the radio used to comfort Riki before he met the Little Busters. And the loneliness he had in those days and how he aspires to help other lonely people somewhere out there.
4 Likes
I think one thing to remember about this whole ordeal is the fact that they are in the dream world. Ergo, everything that doesn’t make sense is possible simply because they are in the dream world. This happens much more than in the Mio route. Kurugay and Kud are other examples.
It’s hard to argue exactly who chooses it to be so, but at least in the routes, I’m confident that the heroine of that route chooses it. So why does Midori just suddenly appear? Why does Riki just hear them in the middle of the ocean? Because Mio wishes it to be so. Because she believes that is how she can get Riki to help fix her regret.
1 Like
So about the changes to the common route after playing through more and more of the game. Back when I read the translated original version, I could reload a save I made 10 minutes into playing, and Kengo wouldn’t go insane and all that. However, I notice that when I did the same thing with the new English Edition release, all the unlockable content is there. Am I doing something wrong, or is that on purpose? Is there no way to re-read the game as if it were my first play-through?
Likely normal because you aren’t supposed to play Little Busters with a save file that doesn’t take in account the common route growth and development. It’s part of the whole point of the plot.
The Kurugaya true epilogue became like unnecessarily convoluted in this version. It’s something like: The Kurugaya that narrates the summer epilogue is the part of Kurugaya that loves Riki who was locked away in some dream world/time bubble. And when that personification of emotions gets a message from Riki, then we go to the confession in autumn which may or may not be the real world. Dammit, Tonokawa, why you gotta do this?
I guess people may have complained about the original because Kurugaya is supposed to be in the hospital at the start of summer, but is this seriously the better alternative? Tonokawa seems to have been slightly obsessed with making people understand the “rules” of the dream worlds, whereas less would have been more. And how did Riki send a message and apparently go to that world yet still be surprised when she confesses. I very much don’t like this ending nor these edits. Even if it made no sense before, adding more cryptic bullshit won’t help.
(For context, the original went from “I had a premonition” to “I had thought it was a promise.” Everything in between was added in the EX update. )
1 Like
What a strangely worded scene… Not sure if those are mistakes or intentional.
Gonna throw out a thought here, and maybe it doesn’t fit with the grander context, but… The scene quoted appears to fit fine in the story. It starts with the narrator (Yuiko) stating she felt a bunch of feelings from the dream world, which implies a detachment from the experience of the dream world (something that other characters also feel.) Nevertheless she states that even if the world goes away and she forgets the details, she will still feel the same way. Her switch to first person enforces this.
So basically she is detached from the events of her own route, but the feelings from it still exist within her. She doubts it all and struggles to accept it as truth—as you’d expect of a friendless loveless girl whose only love existed in a dream—but once Riki shows up and fulfills the promise, she can no longer doubt it.
It seems like the only thing the change really enforced is that this ending exists within the dream world. Either the world was reborn/continued by Yuiko (by her later wish of the route never happening) and Riki somehow showed up, or the dream world never actually ended and they’re all still inside it. Or maybe the assertion of being within the dream world is just a further example of how stuck in the dream Yuiko is; emotionally she is still in the same place that she was when they made the promise.
There’s a good amount of “it feels like it hasn’t ended” in Little Busters.
Sure you can see it as unreliable narration, but I assume Echo’s drawing that conclusion because he expects the weather to be consistent across endings (It’s not a bad conclusion because LB! is very consistent with with stuff like that). However, Komari and Riki getting fucked in the head could just as easily screw up the world itself meaning weather and stuff stops working.
1 Like
Yup, I wasn’t doubting him or the narration, just genuinely asking since I haven’t read that part ^^
Quoting @Naoki_Saten from Discord
Naoki-Saten@Kurugaya - Last Monday at 8:18 PM
Just finished Kurugaya
…
Naoki-Saten@Kurugaya - Last Monday at 8:45 PM
anyway
what the heck is that dream?
HeliosAlpha - Last Monday at 8:45 PM
Which one
Naoki-Saten@Kurugaya - Last Monday at 8:45 PM
it never became relevant…
HeliosAlpha - Last Monday at 8:45 PM
There’s like 5
Naoki-Saten@Kurugaya - Last Monday at 8:45 PM
there’s 3, but none of them are important
HeliosAlpha - Last Monday at 9:13 PM
1: After she visits sick Riki
2: After they talk about her name and Riki tries calling her for the first time
3: When he tries to stay up past midnight after it starts snowing
Could’ve sworn there were more than that
No, there has to have been one before those
Yeah before that is when he falls asleep and she carries him to her room
So indeed what could be the meaning of those sequences? Throughout all dreams Riki is always stuck behind a glass wall while seeing different things. First he sees a still lake and the snow; second he sees fireflies; third he hears “everyone” talking. My only idea is that this is more about the secret of the world rather than Kurugaya’s story. No idea what the lake relates to, but the snow is obviously about the cogs and world breaking. The fireflies and voices should be the busters controlling the dream. There’s also how Kurugaya’s piano is always playing, maybe in reference to how she’s trying to steer the world in the direction she wants.
1 Like
Okay, I have have “answer” of sorts to this topic, but it requires a lot of other bits of knowledge, and it’s awkward to explain, so this is gonna be a long one. Tl;Dr is that the dreams are a revelation and foreshadowing into the mechanics of the world, granted to Riki assumably by Yuiko.
I’ll also start with a reminder that a big part of Yuiko’s character is her seeming lack of existence. She is part of the broadcast club, and she plays Piano and sends messages through it, but nobody can hear her. It isn’t until Riki suddenly notices it that Yuiko is heard.
First, we should establish the common symbolism of the route. For example, rain appears to be representative of the feelings Yuiko holds. That isn’t to say the connection is positive however; rain is often used to frame the strange happenings of the world. From the point where the two became romantically involved, the rain fell, and it serves as a device to isolate Riki (or maybe even Yuiko) from everyone else.
Quotey
{Kurugaya}“I think my tragedy is that I’ve never had this feeling before.”
{Kurugaya}“Before I met you guys, I didn’t even realize how unfortunate I was.”
{Kurugaya}“I didn’t know what was fun and what was boring.”
{Kurugaya}“I didn’t know a thing.”
{Kurugaya}"…Not even what it is to be in love, or to like someone."
{Kurugaya}“But…”
{Kurugaya}“Now… A little.”
{Kurugaya}“Maybe just a little.”
{Kurugaya}“I think I understand.”
{Kurugaya}“I was happy to hear your words.”
{Kurugaya}“That must mean that…”
{Kurugaya}"…we feel the same way about each other."
{Riki}"…"
Neither of us said a word.
…And then I felt a drop of water on my nose.
The rain was starting to fall down.
{Kurugaya}“These are my true feelings.”
She spoke in her usual tone.
Rain shows up multiple times, such as when Riki realizes no one else can hear Yuiko’s broadcasts:
The day ended without any major events.
It rained for the rest of the day, so our practice was cancelled.
{Riki}“Sigh…”
I threw my body on the bed with a sigh.
I’ve never liked rain much in the first place.
With how it shows up, it could be said that the rain is a representation of Yuiko’s isolation. It constantly seperates her from anyone else, in more ways than physical. It almost erases her, washing her away from the world.
There are also several other motifs that couple with this. “River” shows up in one of the dream sequences, and it has a parallel with rain during the Kud route.
KUD ROUTE SPOILERS
The girl who was trying to be a gear that nobody wished for.
Her body so tiny and fragile,
it looked like nothing more than a thin crystal needle about to break at any moment.
The water level was getting higher.
Rain?
Or river water?
{Kud}“It’s time to say good-bye, Riki…”
Her voice was gradually growing distant.
It was the voice of one who had given up everything.
Just before Riki fights against the world at the end of the Kud route, in the scene where he uses his teleportation magic, Kud has given up. She is ready for the world to reset, and in that moment an image of rain and a river appears.
The river motif appears again in the Mio route. She says “If it could manage to ride on this river wind, it might be able to go any distance.”
To go further, this scene appears not long after:
{Nishizono}"…Do you remember the conversation we had at the riverside?"
{Riki}“Which conversation exactly?”
We had brought up too many topics to be sure.
{Nishizono}“About the Hyakunin Isshu containing a number of love-related poems.”
{Riki}“Yeah, I remember it.”
{Nishizono}“Sutokuin, for example, wrote one relating his feelings to the river current.”
{Nishizono}“Even if people see the same scenery, some will think it’s just a river…”
{Nishizono}“While others may be reminescent of their beloved ones separated from them.”
{Nishizono}“The way we define the world varies depending on one’s feelings, memories, and experiences.”
{Riki}“Yeah, I think so, too.”
This is the inspiration for Mio’s poem. In the context of Yuiko’s route, I take it to mean “if you can keep the flow of water going, you can continue to ride it” or something of that sort.
As Mio says, the definition of ‘river’ in the context of Mio’s route is much different than it is in Yuiko’s route. There is a notable inspiration however, as we learn that the origin of this river imagery stems from a love poem about memory and perception.
As for the actual dreams…
dream 1
She had been holding my hand ever since then.
{Kurugaya}“Oh, my bad.”
She let go.
And that instant…
{Riki}“Ah…”
My knees buckled.
…The warmth of Kurugaya-san’s hand enveloped mine again, feeling hot to my touch.
{Kurugaya}“What’s with you, you tell me to let go and then grab my hand again…”
{Kurugaya}"…Young man?"
{Riki}“N… o…”
I’m okay.
I tried to tell her that.
…But my head hurt too much.
It was a pulsating pain, as if my head was in a vise.
{Kurugaya}“Hey… What’s wrong!?”
I’m okay, I’m fine.
I tried to move my lips.
…But my body was no longer listening to me.
My vision went gray.
…Then everything was dark.
And I…
{Kurugaya}"…Riki-kun, get a grip!"
I leaned over on Kurugaya-san.
{Riki}(Ahahaha… I’m just so pathetic…)
That was my last, fading thought before I was plunged into darkness.
{Riki}(Do I… have to sleep again, no matter what…)
…My headache didn’t end.
Even while I was dreaming, the vise on my head kept tightening.
…It was darkness.
Yes, darkness.
Everything was covered in darkness.
{Riki}(No…)
It wasn’t even darkness. Darkness only exists where there is\r
light.
So, this was…
Yes, it was nothingness.
…I wasn’t seeing anything because there was nothing to see.
And that felt like salvation to me.
…Only my headache never ceased.
But here, that was the only proof of my existence.
This dream serves as a mechanical explanation. This is an inner-world Riki is forced into, that is supposed to be completely empty. Riki says that the lack of anything is a good feeling, and that his headache is the only thing he has in those moments. In some way it could be considered a representation of himself, and maybe that’s how they used to be, however as we go further into the route, something happens…
dream 2
…Amidst the darkness.
Amidst the darkness, there was nothing.
{Riki}(Ah, again there’s nothing.)
{Riki}(Maybe I won’t have to dream anymore…)
I could only feel time moving faster.
I wondered how long would have passed since I fell asleep, when I wake up.
I felt as though I heard the sound of a piano.
It felt as though it was a melody I had heard before.
…And I thought I heard the sound of rain.
…White.
I was looking down at the city from somewhere high above.
Looking through the misty haze.
The air is so white, I thought to myself.
What was I looking at? Something far away, something obscured by the white mist.
A line…? A contour…?
A thin beam of light was piercing the whiteness.
On the other side of the whiteness was a lake. Its surface was still as a mirror, not the tiniest ripple disturbing its tranquility.
When I looked up, I saw white cotton falling.
It was snow.
When the flakes reached the surface, they disappeared as though seeping in.
And nothing remained.
Ah…
I put my hand on the glass.
The glass before my eyes was white because of my breath.
It must be cold, I thought as I gazed through the glass.
…And even a dream such as this would be forgotten once I woke up.
This dream starts off by echoing the sentiments of the first dream. The darkness and the nothingness return as a staple, however the dream changes… Into one with a piano and rain. His city appears from outside the glass, but it is surrounded by fog of war. A single beam of light reveals a mirror of a lake, which consumes the snow that falls from above. Riki is overseeing all this from isolation behind glass.
Side note: It is strange to use the anime as material here, but the OP of refrain includes a similar birds eye view. It pictures the school as a white fog erases it. However before it completely erases, it cuts to a scene of Riki running through a warping environment and into darkness. He then wakes up in a classroom.
It’s implied that this is a narcoleptic dream, but something is different about it.
dream 3
I turned my gaze to the window.
It was still raining.
…Is it ever going to stop?
{Riki}“Hm…”
I’ll be able to go out with Kurugaya-san anytime, when it finally lets up…
I let out a big sigh.
{Riki}(Maybe I should give her a call…)
I took out my cell phone and dialed her number.
{Voice}[The number you have dialed is not in service at the moment, or is turned off…]
{Riki}“Weird…”
Did her battery die or something?
That’s something I can’t do anything about.
I let out another sigh.
I don’t know if things are going fine between us or not…
Sometimes we’re at odds over the weirdest things…
{Riki}"…"
I started becoming aware of the fact that I was alone.
{Riki}(I hope tomorrow comes soon…)
I took a glance at the calendar.
{Riki}“Eh…”
…What day was it today?
{Riki}“Hm…”
Whatever…
I looked out the window one more time.
{Riki}(Hope it’s a clear day tomorrow.)
With that thought I fell asleep, earlier than usual.
…My eyes were still shut.
{Riki}(…Hm…)
I heard something.
The sound of a piano…
{Riki}(What song is that…)
Half-asleep, I wondered to myself.
I think I’ve heard this tune before.
And also…
{Riki}(The same thing…)
{Riki}(…happened before…)
It was evening.
The wind was strong.
I was probably by the riverside.
The grass was rustling in the wind.
…Or that’s how it felt to me.
In truth, no sound reached my ears.
There were fireflies flickering by the river.
That’s the image I got, of them quietly dancing around in the darkness.
If I ran through the grass…
…they’d all fly up at once, what a sight that’d be.
But…
I only watched the spectacle from behind the closed window.
…Will I forget this dream as well, I wondered.
It was still raining.
{Riki}"…"
Why won’t it stop…
This dream is distinctly different from Riki’s narcolepsy. He falls into it very easily, and there are things within it. The piano returns, but Riki is in a strange state. He isn’t fully asleep, and he is now overseeing himself within the environment from before. It’s at this point that the idea becomes obvious, that this is Yuiko. Riki, hearing the piano, looking out of the window, all alone, is now in the shoes of Yuiko. He watches the fireflies dance and play, and wishes to run up to them, but instead he remains looking from behind the window. The most important line in my opinion here is “I was probably by the riverside.” Riki saying this, even though he is completely detached from the scene, is the telling moment of whose perspective this is.
Something to point out about these two dreams is the weather. In the Yuiko-perspective dream it is raining, whereas in the fog of war dream it is snowing. The rain dream seems more grounded within an environment, and the snow dream’s world feels hazy and less defined.
Snow is further referenced as Riki figures out the world he’s in isn’t correct. At this point the rain stops and the snow begins.
more dreaming
{Riki}“Ugh…”
…My consciousness…
My consciousness was fading away.
It had never happened at night, before…
…I tried to fight it back.
Through my blurred vision…
I saw…
０：００, ６／２１.
{Riki}(Aah…)
Maybe this finally puts an end to this ‘strange’ world.
When I wake up…
Everything will be back to normal…
I won’t have…
to suffer like that anymore…
I hope it’ll really be like that…
I heard someone talking.
‘Everyone’ was talking.
…Why is ‘everyone’ else talking?
Let me talk with you, too.
But my voice didn’t reach them.
I looked up at the sky.
There were stars.
It was dark, it felt like there was only nothingness.
And amidst all this I heard ‘everyone’s’ voices.
…But it’s okay, I’ll be fine…
…‘everyone’ is there.
…Even if it’s a dream, I’ll never awaken from it.
My voice didn’t reach them.
I just kept looking at them from behind the clouded window, listening to their dialogue.
…I’ll never wake up.
…But then, why am I here…?
{Riki}"…"
…
…I looked outside the window.
It was still snowing.
This dream continues the detachment. Riki is back in the nothingness environment, however there is a sky with stars. It’s clear that Riki is still in the same environment from previous dreams, however for some reason the scenery no longer exists. He is still sat behind the glass, but the scene outside of the glass has changed. Riki hears voices, and he can’t communicate with them, but strangely he is okay with this. He’s fine because “everyone” exists.
He says that even if this is a dream, he won’t wake up from it, which implies this scenario is truth. Even if he were to physically awaken from this dream, there wouldn’t be any real difference.
At this point, I believe Yuiko’s problems are transferring to Riki. Early into the Yuiko route we see Riki get involved with (and try to solve) Yuiko’s issues, and a similar thing is happening here. He is now looking out of the window in real life. He is now the one split from the Busters. He is now the one that nobody can hear.
It’s also worth mentioning that, despite the bouts of narcolepsy, Riki constantly mentions how he hasn’t gotten to sleep. There are multiple things you can take from this, but personally I think that either the Narcolepsy is compensating for Riki’s restless nights (making these weird dreams occur more often than in other routes) or that the Riki we play as isn’t the one doing the dreaming. This would line it up well with the post-refrain Yuiko ending that hints the existence of dream-world lives that continue to remain there even after the Busters leave.
Going back to defining imagery, let’s look at ‘white’, ‘snow’, and the sound of the piano.
almost the ending scene
{Riki}“Why…”
{Riki}“Why isn’t anyone listening…”
{Riki}“I know you can hear…”
{Riki}“You can hear her voice…!”
{Riki}“Why isn’t anyone listening!”
I screamed.
But no one turned to me.
It seemed like not even my own voice reached anyone’s ears any longer.
…This isn’t fair.
The gears could no longer be shifted back.
The sound of a piano remained in my ears.
…The artificial sound of an electric piano…
{Riki}(…The piano…)
The melody that no one could hear.
I was always listening to it.
When it was raining, and when Kurugaya-san began losing her memories.
…And when it was snowing too.
I was always listening to it.
I finally found the only rift in this world.
{Riki}(If…)
{Riki}(If I can still get through to her…)
I took out my cell phone, and dialed Kurugaya-san’s number.
{Voice}[The number you have dialed is not in service at the moment, or is turned off…]
It didn’t connect.
{Riki}"…!!"
I dialed one more time.
Just one time is enough.
…But it was useless.
{Riki}“I can’t…”
{Riki}“I can’t get through to her anymore…”
It must’ve been an omen.
I should go to the broadcast room.
I left the classroom.
…It was still snowing outside…
The entire world was white.
{Riki}"…"
Until a moment ago there had been a classroom behind the door.
But now it was entirely covered by white.
Behind the door was a perfectly white space.
I could hear the classroom noise from far away.
…The classroom was just before my eyes, but it seemed so far.
Meaning that…
This dream is coming to its end, and everything is awakening.
Everything is disappearing from the ‘stage’, now unnecessary.
I…
I realized that once swallowed by the white, everything would be gone.
This white space didn’t ‘exist’.
It was empty.
It was blank, there was nothing inside.
This is after all of the dreams, and now we can collate all this information.
The world is now a mess, and Riki is all alone. All of the previous elements come together to create this scene. Riki can’t be heard, but he can still hear the piano. The piano is super important here, as it frames the timescale of the story well. For as long as it was raining (from the moment Riki and Yuiko got together) and continuing as it snowed, Riki was listening to the Piano. We know it was there during the dreams, but it was also there outside of the dreams. Yuiko was playing her melody all throughout the confusing destruction of the world, and Riki could hear it.
The dream from way back, when it was snowing and foggy, now comes into play. This is what the world looks like when it is about to end. If the rain is the signal of the world ending (as we learned from the Kud route and can infer from refrain) then snow is the signal of the world continuing beyond that natural end by force (or maybe just a sign of the world’s struggle to continue being.) The rain kept on going, the world’s reset was forcibly rejected, and the piano kept playing.
The thing you really have to question is how Riki dreams within a dream world. We do see other characters dream, such as Kyousuke does early into the VN, however in all cases it can be said that the dreams are truths. They are other bits of content from the dream world. Riki’s Narcolepsy lacks any content because of this, because he doesn’t have memories of any other routes, however the strange Yuiko-related dreams do have content.
The piano playing, the constant rain, the strange dreams, and the transformation of Riki, are all things put in place to tell us that the world is being messed with by the piano player. The early dream is foreshadowing that if the world continues in such a way, it WILL fall apart, and since the world continues in such a way, it does fall apart.
There’s a lot of other stuff you’ve probably inferred from bits of this post. Unfortunately I didn’t think about organizing this post before I wrote it, so I’m kinda just generalizing the whole thing into one conclusion for the sake of completion, but there’s a lot of random branches you can follow. There are a lot of motifs (stars, lakes, etc…) that I had no space to mention. I didn’t even clarify that the extension of the rain begins with the day of the date, which implies an initial understandable forced-continuation by Yuiko to not miss the planned date with Riki, which further implies a continuing extension as she falls deeper in love… Or, for another example, that the “haze” from the wintery dream was born from the rain, as explained in one random sentence part-way through the route.
There’s a LOT in this route guys.
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This conversation in particular… Kurugaya’s lines are interposed with “black text on white screen”
{Kurugaya}“I think my tragedy is that I’ve never had this feeling before.”
{Kurugaya}“Before I met you guys, I didn’t even realize how unfortunate I was.”
{Kurugaya}“I didn’t know what was fun and what was boring.”
{Kurugaya}“I didn’t know a thing.”
{Kurugaya}"…Not even what it is to be in love, or to like someone."
{Kurugaya}“But…”
{Kurugaya}“Now… A little.”
– It was a truly small wish.
{Kurugaya}“Maybe just a little.”
– It was a string untied little by little.
{Kurugaya}“I think I understand.”
– I wanted to know more and more about it.
{Kurugaya}“I was happy to hear your words.”
– I wanted to know what it meant to like, and to love
{Kurugaya}“That must mean that…”
– And thus, I ended up wishing for what came after.
{Kurugaya}"…we feel the same way about each other."
– Not knowing what that was, I wished for it.
{Riki}"…"
Neither of us said a word.
…And then I felt a drop of water on my nose.
The rain was starting to fall down.
{Kurugaya}“These are my true feelings.”
She spoke in her usual tone.
It’s a powerful scene that, between the love confession, marks the beginning of Kurugaya’s resolution: she wants to know more about feelings. She stretches the world past its end, until it collapses on itself.
Other particular phrases that caught my attention on my second playthrough:
During Riki’s first confession, rain begins falling as he and Kurugaya are still speaking, and after Kurugaya’s gone, Riki comments
“It started to rain… No, it had already started from before.”
It’s true that rain began falling as they were speaking, but I feel like “rain” had already been pouring for a while.
Talking with the guys after being rejected:
Kyousuke: “If you keep on doing this, the only result you’ll get will likely be a scar in your heart”
A normal thing to tell a friend, but Kyousuke’s position in everything still makes me think there might be more.
When Riki decides he’s going to try again despite being rejected, the rain stops.
After Kurugaya accepts Riki’s feelings, she says “… promise me one thing. Let’s not go out when it rains”.
After Riki caught a cold while playing in the rain it might seem normal, but… she had already forgotten about that, so there’s another reason for it.
(I want to write longer and deeper posts like the other people here, but they always end up super short)
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Another thing to mention about those lines in particular is their use in connecting it to the post-refrain scene. Ala Tomoyo After, these cg-text scenes are reflective, which leads to further blurring of Yuiko and Riki’s perspectives. Of course it also helps draw attention to the scene as the starting-point for what was to come.
It ties in well with the scene in which Riki first hears the piano playing. It’s not that the broadcast club suddenly started to exist, but that Riki started to notice it.
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So, I’m not sure if we’ve already started discussing this here or on some other topic, but let’s talk about Kamikita Kojirou as a representative of route-related NPCs. I believe it was @cjlim2007 who asked on discord who Kojirou is and how he got there.
I think we all agree that creating conflicts we play through as “routes” is an inherent mechanic of the imaginary world. As Midori pointed out, the world is fullfilling wishes. It happens so that the “dreamers” can clear their greatest regrets. We also know that the world is maintained by the dreamers, some of which are mostly unaware of the secret of the world due to memory manipulation. The trials would be rather ineffective if the one on trial knows it’s not real and pointless, anyway.
My point is, the dreamers can maintain the world unconsciously, just by being there and even if they’re not aware of the secret.
The lead-up is longer than the conclusion: I’m sure that the NPCs are also created from the memories of dreamers, automatically, for the sake of the trial awaiting the respective characters. Therefore, Kojirou, with all the knowledge he has, was created by the world using Komari’s memories. She may not remember Kojirou, but he is there, in her memory, just like Takuya.
Kyousuke can’t possibly know about Midori, the things Komari has forgotten, about Saigusa Shou, the hardships Haruka went through, and also all of Kud’s Tevua stuff. And while he can manipulate the NPCs, as shown by his CHEAP TRICKS, I think that a lot of the things NPCs like Suginami and Koshiki do are too easily attributed to Kyousuke’s involvement, and I would argue they are mostly moving according to the world’s mechanics rather than Kyousuke’s forceful intervention.
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This is basing off of my very very inconsistent memory so I do apologize in advance if I am wrong; if I am, disregard the following statements 
But if my memory does serve me correctly, I don’t think the rest of the Little Busters were at all aware that they were already done for at that point. Only Kyousuke knew about the gas leak at the end, and the others were just aware of being in an accident. Sure, they were very close to death at that point, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them were still hopeful of surviving.
Kyousuke, on the other hand, was resigned to the fact that this would be their last chance, but he stilled pull that stuff on them despite this.
Again, I could be wrong so I won’t push this point any further shrug
I’ll have to thank @Naoki_Saten because I feel he worded what I wanted to say in a much better way:
But in the case, you can replace “the author” with “Kyousuke”
I’m not entirely sure either now that you put it like that, but the fact remains, they, by all rights, should have died. And even if they didn’t know about the gas leak, some of them, especially Kurugaya, may well have been able to guess that a totalled bus would explode, and only the two who remained conscious after the initial impact had a chance of survival. The fact that Kyousuke knew at least is what’s important, I think. He was giving them the chances for all those things I talked about before they died, even if they didn’t necessarily know it.
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Well I guess regardless, you’re right on that point. As I said in Kurugaya’s route topic, it is better to have felt and lost then to have not felt at all, and Kyousuke gave her that opportunity. Regardless of how sad that made her by the end of it all, it was better than having her live the rest of her existence having not felt at all
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