On the Doll Star, there were two forbidden things.
Returning to Earth. And meddling in human lives.
The captain of the Doll Star had upheld those rules strictly.
He knew what happened when humans noticed beings from the world of imagination.
Selfishness, greed, confusion. When humans found something beautiful, they sometimes broke it.
The rules existed to prevent that.
Behind those rules lay another story no one liked to tell.
The moment a child grew up and drifted away from their doll, the dolls who moved to the Doll Star were granted eternal life.
That was the first farewell. Sad, but not the end.
But if a doll broke the rules, returned to Earth, and faced farewell once more, that was different.
A doll who endured a second farewell would not gain eternal life, but complete oblivion.
Left in no one's memory. With no trace anywhere in the world. As though they had never existed at all.
That was the sad secret hidden behind the rules.
Did Muffin know that secret?
She didn't. She only thought she'd be scolded for breaking the rules.
A telling-off from the captain, a summons back to the Doll Star, that's all. The night she boarded the train clutching the recipe book, that was all that filled Muffin's head.
Maple's blank pages. The kitchen left all alone. The voice murmuring that the flavors felt empty.
Those things loomed larger than anything else.
The conductor asked one last time.
If you go now... you may never come back. Are you truly sure you won't regret it?
Muffin didn't hesitate, even so. She simply stepped off the train.
Outside the window, the Doll Star drifted further away. The starlight grew small.
And Muffin flew toward Maple, who no longer remembered her.
