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. )
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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.
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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.
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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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Again, people attribute an inherent mechanic of the imaginary world to Kyousuke. The world loops back automatically because it can’t reach the day of the field trip for obvious reasons. The loop is inevitable. Kyousuke CAN initiate the loop it manually, like he does in Kud or Rin1, but there’s also bad ends like Mio’s where he doesn’t.
Also, the dreamers can create the world because they are in a near-death state AND they have strong regrets. The world exists to help them deal with those regrets. If they weren’t sure they would die, they wouldn’t be able to create the world in the first place.
“But Naoki-sensei, how did Rin create that other world for just herself and Riki?” Well, remember how Komari gave Rin one of her stars? That’s how. It wasn’t just a pretty gesture.
Well, it’s not like everyone is convinced everyone but Riki and Rin would die. During the shooting star viewing, Komari gets especially sad when an eights star falls. But she doesn’t hint at who she thinks that last star was supposed to symbolize. Whether she was hoping for herself or someone else. Or maybe she knew all along, but seeing that “proof” was still disheartening.
I haven’t gotten to Refrain on my reread yet, so I’m just recalling this from memory.
While we’re at it, there’s another thing I want to point out about Kurugaya. In Little Busters, we can see that sometimes, it’s the people who seem the strongest who are actually the least resilient when it comes to tragedy. The other girls cleared their regrets and moved on peacefully. Komari stayed behind to help Rin become happier, but even she said doing that might be selfish and therefore, she’ a “bad girl”. But Kurugaya wanted to hold onto that happiness she had finally acquired. It’s understandable, but very selfish, especially considering what it would mean for the other girls. Whoever already got their regrets cleared had already left the world and therefore couldn’t be part of this prolonged existence, while the others had yet to clear their own regrets and it would remain that way for good. She wanted to keep Riki all to herself in an endlessly ongoing world, naively believing they could stay that way forever.
That’s right, Kurugaya is the female Kengo.
Kurugaya and Kengo kept doing things that are considered good for their future instead of enjoying their youth and having fun. Death had stolen that future from them, meaning they had essentially wasted their time. Given the opportunity of remaining in a place where they could spend time with their friends and have fun, they couldn’t resist holding onto it forever.
Kurugaya and Kengo think in a similar way. Kengo wanted to support Riki in pursuing Kurugaya when Kyousuke said it’s better to give up. Kengo thought it’s fine for Riki to pursue happiness, while Kyousuke thought this particular romance might endanger the big plan. The bro scenes in Kurugaya’s route were essentially a soft version of Rin2.
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I’d thought you were talking about how this all happens within the dream world and how that would mean their lives aren’t in danger after all. But then it occurred to me that
this threat remains. After the dream world comes to an end, their lives would once again be in danger if Kanata doesn’t continue to hate Haruka. I mean, I guess they could just fake it until the danger passes, but Riki states at the end of Refrain that the two of them had made up, so if they were planning on doing that, they obviously aren’t doing a very good job.
In which case, what interpretation are you referring to?
So I’ve been slowly making it through Little Busters (bought it on the last Steam sale) and I’m on my second route now (Komari) with a question about the stuff with Kengo being the hero, jumping off the building, breaking his arm and joining baseball. That wasn’t in my first route at all (Mio) so I’m curious if this is a Komari route thing for some reason or if there’s actually events that change depending on how many routes if that have been completed. If the later that’s pretty cool and I don’t recall ever hearing of something like this happening before.
Well while this is “spoiler general” I will leave my answer to your question spoiler tagged, in case you don’t wanna ruin the surprise 
yes, that scene only happens after you finish your first route. Other scenes also come out as you finish more routes, so keep your eyes open 
ok I’ll save this then (I assume for after Refrain), although I have seen the anime so I might already know anyway.
Someone in the writing team seems to really have liked the word 儚い(hakanai); it’s translated as ‘fleeting’ or ‘fragile’ most of the time. It’s used in three scenes in the original game. EX then added six more, two of which includes an explanation of the word. Because the kanji is formed from the radicals for ‘person’ and ‘dream’, you can read it like “Man’s dreams are fleeting.”
The scenes where this word is used are as follows, starting with the original then the added ones.
Komari
Used to describe Komari in the scene where she tells Riki about finding her brother’s picture book. It’s used twice in this scene.
Mio
Used to describe Mio’s expression when she’s alone. (This happens right after the classmate bumps into Mio without noticing.)
Refrain
Used to describe Rin in the epilogue. This is probably the most well known line, as it’s the basis for the theory about everyone being dead at the end of the story which in turn is like the only reason Bokura no Asa exists.
Saya
Used as one of the wrong choices for what the rest of floor 6 will look like. This is the most detailed explanation of kanji’s meaning. It does also show up in the sex scene when Saya talks about how that scene is too movie-like and “real” spies don’t have the leisure for sexy times.
Kanata
Used to describe Kanata if you go the non-romantic route, but why would you ever pick that route.
Sasami
First used by Kyousuke, and here we have the lesser explanation of the kanji. They bring up the word two more times later in the route: First, when Riki remembers what Kyousuke said through the static; Second, before the final meeting with Kengo when Riki discovers that the town has disappeared. All times they’re describing the state of world.
Kud
During the alternate ending and only when you have Mio as roommate, Komari shows up to talk about the box Kud wants to throw away. It’s then used to describe her expression at the end.
Seeing as the word gets the most focus in Sasami’s route, it seems likely Tonokawa was the one to push the phrase. As for common patterns and conclusions, I dunno… When describing characters, it’s usually about them mulling over the conflict about to come. Other times it’s referring to the nature of the fabricated world. At the same time, it’s hardly like they always use that word when talking about those things. Let’s face it, when the word shows up only 16 times in a script longer than God’s engorged dick, it may not be the most important of devices. Often, it feels like something they just thought of later in production and decided to pack the expansion full of it.
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