I was just another exhausted office worker.
Every day I rode the same crowded train, sat at the same desk,
and watched the same tasks pile up without end.

“…Great. Another night train home.”

I couldn’t remember how many times I’d whispered that to myself.
By the time I finally reached my apartment, I had no strength left to think.

I collapsed onto my bed without even undressing,
and the moment I exhaled, my eyelids grew unbearably heavy.

At that moment—
I swear I heard something quietly snap inside my chest.

Work, fatigue, anxiety—
I sank into sleep as if trying to escape everything.

…Or so I thought.

＊

When I opened my eyes, I was standing somewhere unfamiliar.

A violet mist crawled along the ground, moonlight trembling within the haze.
The air was cold, yet carried a strangely sweet scent.

I looked up to see a colossal castle rising like a shadow.
Ancient, imposing, nowhere near anything reality could produce—
a silent, towering structure stabbing into the sky.

I murmured without thinking,

“…Is this a dream?”

The wind brushing my skin, the stone beneath my shoes—
it all felt too vivid to dismiss as fantasy.

And before I could make sense of anything—

A deep creak echoed.
The massive doors began to open on their own.

Warm light spilled out from the darkness,
as if someone on the other side had been waiting for me.

My feet moved forward on their own,
pulled by something irresistible, something I couldn’t see.

And beyond that doorway—
I met them.

The Crimson Queen.
The Witch of Frost.
The Goddess of Gentle Warmth.
そして、The Mischievous Little Devil.

A world apart from reality—
a castle of melting, sweet night that existed between dreams and waking life.

The encounters waiting for me there
would change my fate forever—
though at that moment, I knew nothing of it.