She and I were co-workers on our lunch break and she had no plans, so she brashly invited herself to accompany me to my destination, which turned out to be a secluded little island that I regularly snuck off to during my lunch hour in this dream reality. The island was decorated with little miniature gingerbread looking houses that were inhabited by tiny cartoon characters. So after giving her a mini-tour, we sat down and then I to ask what her plans were for her future. Specifically I asked her if she was doing any saving, and she said, not really, she's young, only 23 (in the dream), and trying to live a full life. And I responded, that's great, but you should put a little away for the future as well. "If you start now, just put $5K a year away and by the time you're 40 you'll have over $100k for sure, on your way to being a millionaire!" Yes, I was alone with an idol and we were discussing...retirement planning. What the hell kind of dream was this? Seems my days of lusting after the talent are long past and even in my fantasies I'm reduced to merely offering them avuncular counsel.
Anyway, from there we took the subway back to the ol' shigoto and after riding for some time I noticed that the street numbers were going up instead of down, so we got off at some unknown stop to transfer back to the other direction. This station was large and cavernous, and looked something like a giant rat maze, with tubes and platforms on different levels, and metal stairs and grates everywhere. At that point I realized we had about 3 minutes to get back to work before we were late. So I selfishly thought to myself, "I'd better check in with the office so they know I'm running late. But I won't mention Hoo-chan, because that's just going to make it look like we're returning late together from some afternoon hanky-panky, and I don't want that on my reputation. She can call in for herself if she wants to, her being late is her own problem, not mine!"
Somehow Honoka must've magically gleaned my self-centered thoughts because at that moment she distanced herself from me and jumped down to a platform on another level, although I could see her. She was sulkily laying down, lolling atop one of the gratings, like when a little kid gets tired and cranky after a meal and suddenly turns into a heavy but boneless rag doll. And I shouted out to her, "What are you doing, get up! That's dangerous to just lie down in a subway station." She looked up at me with her eyes in contemptuous slits. But just at that moment, a train came barreling through the station, vertically from below, like a rocket launch, bursting through the grating she was lying upon, which flipped up with tremendous force against an indentation in the wall. After the train passed I was in a panic. She was nowhere to be found, but surely she had been flattened into jelly by the train, I thought! Yet then to my relief a metal covering lifted up, and she emerged looking a bit battered but no worse for the wear. I called to her, "Hoochan! Come back!" But instead she just climbed down still further into the depths, and I woke up despondent.