Classroom of the Elite, I Have a Life Simulator

As if she had made up her mind, she suddenly stood up and grabbed Karuizawa Kei's hand:

"No more waiting, let's go!"

"Eh? Eh? Eh?"

Dragged along by the impulsive girl, Karuizawa Kei ran frantically out of the temple and reached the mountain path leading to the summit. Only then did she regain her composure and hurriedly ask:

"W-what's going on?"

Ichinose Maki was exhausted from the sprint, so she took the opportunity to stop and catch her breath, explaining:

"Actually, actually, my brother and sister are coming over right now."

"Eh? Kitagawa Ryo and the others are coming?"

"I don't know what my sister is planning, but I think it's best if you two don't meet."

Ichinose Maki turned off her phone and looked at Karuizawa Kei with a serious expression:

"Do you like my brother?"

Stunned by the overly direct question, Karuizawa Kei's face flushed red, and she stammered, unable to form a coherent response, even though the girl standing before her was two years her junior.

"You do, right? I know. After all, we're the same."

Ichinose Maki held a finger to her lips and whispered:

"Let me tell you a secret..."

"My brother is a liar. The kind of big liar who'd be a waste if he didn't become an actor."

"Kitagawa-senpai doesn't seem like the type to lie."

Karuizawa Kei was a bit dizzy from Ichinose Maki's erratic train of thought and reflexively retorted.

"Just from what I know, there are already several."

"For example..."

"I never actually confessed to him."

Ichinose Maki said as much.

Chapter 13: Actor (Part 2)

"I feel like I've been treated like a rabbit."

"Rabbits wouldn't eat this many soy products, would they... probably?"

"I actually found those bean curd skins, shredded tofu, and fried tofu balls much tastier than all the various leafy greens."

"I heard that half an hour ago, someone was dragged out by the staff for making a scene because they didn't like the food. Apparently, it was a group of delinquents, but they quieted down the moment they saw security."

"It wasn't that bad, though it's definitely a bit of a letdown for tourists."

Walking out of the tourist restaurant, Kitagawa Ryo and Ichinose Honami had just finished smiling and nodding at a passing monk, only to immediately start complaining about the vegetarian meal they had just eaten.

"I think I still need to eat something."

Kitagawa Ryo rubbed his stomach. The complimentary vegetarian meal not only perfectly embodied the essence of "plain," but it was also pitifully small. For a boy his age, the portion was about the same as a pre-meal appetizer.

"I have sandwiches in my bag."

Ichinose Honami checked her backpack and pulled out two ham and egg sandwiches she had made at home.

The temple built on the mountainside was quite large. The two of them wandered from the front courtyard to the main hall, drew fortunes, and then walked from the main hall to the back courtyard. It took nearly an hour to finish touring the entire site. As they reached the exit of the back courtyard, Kitagawa Ryo finally finished his third sandwich, contentedly sipping his lemon flower tea.

In the center of the back courtyard stood a platform where three old monks with white hair and beards sat. This was where tourists came to have the fortunes they drew in the main hall interpreted. However, what slightly surprised Kitagawa Ryo was that this temple did not interpret marriage fortunes. Driven by curiosity, he secretly edged closer to a nearby tour group, where the guide was explaining the origin of this custom.

Kitagawa Ryo had always been reluctant to listen to such legends. In his view, the birth of various stories—whether real or fabricated—circulating at every tourist attraction was mostly the result of a writer's stroke of genius when the tourism bureau chose the site for development. Every mountain, shrine, and river was suddenly endowed with its own legendary tale; only then could diligent local guides have the capital to boast to passing tourists.

It was all business at its core. Kitagawa Ryo didn't want to be led around by a guide being told that this rock looked like a monkey and that one like an elephant, only for everyone to swarm over for a photo. For him, that kind of tourism was no different from torture.

But this was indeed the first time Kitagawa Ryo had seen a temple that refused to interpret marriage fortunes. Since someone in a nearby tour group happened to ask the question, he took the opportunity to lean in and listen.

The story was actually quite simple.

Hundreds of years ago—a very, very long time ago—two brothers in the mountains fell in love with the same girl. They each went to seek their fortune in love and were both told they would find a perfect match. Consequently, the two brothers turned against each other and fought bitterly over the girl. Neither could best the other, so they finally asked the girl to make a choice, swearing that whoever she chose, the other would accept it and never seek revenge. To their surprise, the girl was just as conflicted; she enjoyed the fact that both brothers loved her with all their hearts and found it impossible to choose.

To her, as long as she didn't make a choice, two people would continue to love her. If she chose one, the two loves would become one. To keep both loves forever, the girl jumped off a cliff in front of them, believing that this way, both men would remember her for eternity.

"And then?"

Ichinose Honami, listening to Kitagawa Ryo recount the story, asked curiously.

"Then the two brothers went on to start families, had many children, and lived happy, fulfilling lives."

Kitagawa Ryo twitched the corner of his mouth, calming his emotions after hearing the story.

"What does that have to do with the temple not interpreting marriage fortunes?"

"Because in their later years, the two men jointly donated the funds to build this temple. This was the rule they left behind. When they were both nearing the end of their lives, they reached a strange consensus."

"Love is something that simply cannot be calculated!"

Ichinose Honami, looking speechless, glanced at the equally dumbfounded Kitagawa Ryo and whispered:

"I initially thought the ending would be that they saw through the vanity of the world, became monks, and severed their ties to romance."

Kitagawa Ryo looked at the marriage fortune slip that Ichinose Honami had been clutching the entire way, and asked tentatively:

"So, what are we doing with this thing?"

"Let's return it."

Since they already knew this temple didn't interpret marriage fortunes, the two lost interest and found the monk in charge of collecting them to return the wooden slip.

"You can keep this as a souvenir, you know."

The monk in charge of collection looked to be in his twenties. Seeing that Ichinose Honami was handing him a marriage fortune, he explained:

"Although this temple does not interpret marriage fortunes, we do allow visitors to take them home."

"Do you want to keep it as a souvenir, Ryo?"

"This is the fortune you drew, Honami. You decide."

Kitagawa Ryo acted as if he had no interest in it, standing to the side with his arms crossed, waiting for Ichinose Honami to make up her mind.

Ichinose Honami looked at the wooden slip in her hand again. It was truly a piece of extremely cheap wood, with the smooth upper part wrapped in red cloth marked with the characters for "Marriage." Usually, marriage fortunes would have vague, poetic lines carved here for the interpreter to explain, but given this temple's unique customs, it was likely just for show.

"Don't you want to take a look?"

She seemed to hear Kitagawa Ryo say something, but her phone vibrated with an incoming message at that exact moment. Ichinose Honami didn't pay it much mind and, with a slightly apologetic expression, handed the slip to the monk:

"We don't want it. We'd probably just end up throwing it away like trash, so please take it back."

"Very well."

The monk didn't try to persuade them further; he nodded and placed the wooden slip solemnly into a box on the other side.

[Did they go to the summit...]

Hearing Ichinose Honami muttering something to herself, Kitagawa Ryo looked at her in confusion:

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing. Let's head to the summit too; it'll be too late if we go down the mountain any later."

Unable to reach Ichinose Maki, Honami put her phone back into her bag as if nothing had happened. However, thanks to the location-sharing software she had installed on her sister's phone, she could still clearly see where she was:

"I was just wondering if Maki and the others had already reached the summit."

"True, we haven't seen them at all. But there are two paths to the summit; maybe they didn't come up through the temple side."

Kitagawa Ryo took Ichinose Honami's shoulder bag and put it on. The time was around two o'clock, and the scorching sun shone from its highest point, releasing its heat with abandon:

"Let's go. To the summit."

Five minutes after the two had left, another man who had just finished having his fortune interpreted at the center table asked the old monk with interest:

"Master, is it true that your temple doesn't interpret marriage fortunes, just like the tour guide said?"

The elderly monk twitched his eyelids and spoke slowly:

"The story is more or less the same."

Just as the man began to show a look of disappointment, the monk suddenly smiled, his face, aged like tree bark, wrinkling until his eyes were almost invisible:

"However, there is actually another legend passed down in this temple."

"The last words left by the two patrons who funded the construction of this temple were actually:"

"Marriage is not something that will make two unrelated people suddenly fall in love just because it is a 'Great Blessing,' nor will it make two people who love each other break up immediately just because it is a 'Great Curse.' If one obsesses over the result of a marriage fortune, one will instead fail to see their own true feelings."

"That is why this temple never interprets marriage fortunes. If couples come to ask, we only tell them that matters of the heart must be interpreted by oneself."

"Master, I have attained enlightenment."

The man bowed his head deeply, wearing an expression that suggested he understood everything.

"The patron truly has great wisdom. It seems you have many insights regarding matters of the heart."

The old monk looked at him with the loving gaze of a teacher seeing a promising student, stroking his long beard.

"Master, actually, I'm thirty-nine and single."

The old monk, nearly choked by the man's answer, coughed violently twice. He beckoned a young monk over and, smiling, continued to speak to the man:

"If you are single, you can also choose our temple's custom marriage fortune service."

"Imagine this: when you bring a person you are interested in to our temple to draw a marriage fortune, and both of you are nervously waiting for the result, our temple suddenly tells you that the fortune must be interpreted by yourself. So, in front of your companion, you tear open the fortune, and it contains the exact words you chose—what a romantic scenario that would be!"

The old monk wore an expression that suggested this was a trade secret he wouldn't tell anyone else, stroking his beard with self-satisfaction as he laughed:

"I have been interpreting fortunes here for twenty years. Through this method, I have brought together at least eight hundred, if not a thousand, couples. I have seen every kind of sweet talk imaginable. If you pay extra, our temple even provides a writing service."

As the old monk raised his hand, the young monk brought over a hardcover book wrapped in kraft paper and handed it to the man:

"These are the phrases used for custom marriage fortunes over the past year. You may take a look."

"If our hearts are one, does it matter if we are apart?"

"This is a poem by Qin Guan from the Song Dynasty."

The man seemed genuinely intrigued, flipping through the pages while reciting the lines:

"A pair of ducks swimming side by side, yet on the duckweed, the frost and dew vanish with ease."

"This is a line from the Manyoshu."

"I will take care of you for the rest of my life."

"That's unexpectedly plain."

The man, who seemed quite cultured, was commenting with great relish, but his composed expression suddenly froze when he flipped to the last few pages:

"One--more--stick"

"What does this mean?"

He scratched his head in confusion; he couldn't find any similar lines in Tang poetry, Song lyrics, or the works of Matsuo or Furukawa.

"Emotions are truly too difficult to understand after all."

The man shook his head and sighed.

Karuizawa Kei stopped in her tracks.

Whenever Karuizawa Kei saw Emi Koura, she couldn't help but feel a surge of disgust and hatred from the bottom of her heart, yet she was also acutely aware that buried beneath these emotions was a deep-seated fear and a desire to escape. Just as she chose to skip swimming class every time and kept her eyes closed whenever she showered, she avoided this woman she hadn't seen in two years at all costs; even though the scar on her abdomen had long since stopped bleeding, Karuizawa Kei still refused to touch it.

She had locked this person and the scar she had inflicted into a cage, sealed it shut, and sunk it into the deepest well, but upon seeing her again, the person hadn't fermented, rotted, or vanished. Looking at the girl of the same age standing before her, Karuizawa Kei felt a strange sense of dissonance.

The face that had flashed through her memories countless times hadn't changed at all compared to two years ago; it was as if her features had simply been scaled up in proportion. The heavy makeup made her look like an apple soaked in preservatives, glowing with an unnatural red and white hue.

"Hey, Karuizawa, it's been two years, hasn't it?"

The lips painted with bright lipstick opened and closed, and the words that burst forth made Karuizawa Kei feel as if she had been slammed hard by something coming toward her, making her almost lose her footing.

But Karuizawa Kei still shielded Ichinose Maki, the screen of the phone hidden in her right hand behind her back glowing brightly.

"What's this, is it someone Emi knows?"

The man with a buzz cut standing next to Emi Koura looked a few years older than her, around twenty, and he grinned as he draped an arm over her shoulder: