There’s a saying floating around the internet: “You can’t wake someone who’s only pretending to sleep.” It gets quoted a lot by people I can’t stand, but the saying itself isn’t wrong. Sleep is just how a person rests. Strictly speaking, nobody can pinpoint the exact hour, minute, second they drifted off, because it isn’t something you control. Wake someone out of that uncontrolled sleep and of course their eyes open. But a person pretending to sleep doesn’t actually want to sleep—they just want everyone else to think they’re asleep. Why would someone who’s awake want people to believe they’re asleep? Simple: to look the other way, to dodge whatever they’ll have to face once they’re up. Easy example. Someone you hate comes looking for you. You don’t want to deal with them, don’t know how to deal with them, don’t want to turn them down, definitely don’t want to talk to them… So you flop onto the desk and fake a deep sleep. A friend tries to wake you, but you were awake the whole time, so naturally you keep yourself from looking awake. That’s exactly what “you can’t wake someone who’s pretending to sleep” means. The pretender chose to pretend because they never wanted to wake up in the first place. You can’t wake them. NekoNeko Soft’s 15th anniversary title Sumire (Violet) picks precisely this “pretend sleep” theme. Just like its OP, “Sleeping Pretend,” it’s the story of three girls who each pretend to sleep to get away from the various things in their lives.