Classroom of the Elite, I Have a Life Simulator 19

Only then could the girl lean against the blue chairs in the lobby and catch her breath. Her eyelids felt as heavy as if they were weighted with thousand-pound pendants, struggling desperately to stay open, and her lips were slightly pale. Her shirt, which had been soaked with sweat, evaporated by the air conditioning, and then soaked again, clung to her body with a sticky sensation. Ichinose Honami stood up unsteadily, preparing to go home and have Ichinose Maki come over to look after her mother for a while; her current condition required a hot bath and a good night's sleep.

Straining to keep going until she reached home, Ichinose Honami explained the situation to Ichinose Maki, who had just woken up and had no idea what had happened, and told her the location of her mother's hospital room. Only after seeing the other girl rush out the door to the hospital did she let out a sigh of relief, rubbing her brow, her fingertips meeting a damp, slick sensation.

On the living room table sat a small cake. It was the size Ichinose Honami had requested herself, and because it wasn't very large, only three candles were stuck into it.

"First a bath, then sleep."

She muttered to herself as she walked into the bathroom.

"Whoosh—"

Hot water poured down from the showerhead, flowing from the girl's hair along the curves of her body down to her toes. The stark difference in temperature made her shiver involuntarily. She quickly rinsed her body, but when she went to wash her hair, she discovered that the shampoo on the shelf was empty. She shook the bottle repeatedly, but only a tiny bit came out into her palm.

"Sigh, forget it."

The half-mirror installed on the vanity was obscured by steam. Ichinose Honami reached out and wiped a clear streak across it, revealing her snow-white neck.

Ichinose Honami wiped away the water mist on the mirror bit by bit, and her features began to sharpen in the reflection.

She reached out and gently touched her own reflection.

"It's okay, it will get better."

Words that had comforted others countless times seemed to have little effect on herself; she watched as the girl in the mirror offered a bitter smile.

The glass felt icy to the touch, a sensation she found somewhat comforting, so she leaned her forehead against it.

The biting cold stimulated the skin pressed against the mirror, and Ichinose Honami closed her eyes.

Her soft, pale breasts were pressed into a mesmerizing curve, and her hot, damp breath formed a new layer of mist on the mirror.

"Growing up, huh..."

Ichinose Honami lowered her eyes and murmured to herself.

After dressing, she walked out of the bathroom and straight into the bedroom, burying herself in the quilt. Even though she was exhausted to the point of collapse, she couldn't fall asleep.

Go sleep in his room.

Once this thought appeared in her mind, it swept through her entire body like a bursting dam. Ichinose Honami grabbed a quilt and opened the door to what used to be Kitagawa Ryo's room.

Sure enough, just lying here made her heart feel at ease.

"A birthday, or the day of my mother's suffering?"

Kitagawa Ryo's words inexplicably popped into her mind. Ichinose Honami struggled to sit up, walked into her own living room, and found the cake on the table with a dazed look in her eyes.

The lighter used to ignite the candles was right beside it. She took the cake and the lighter back to Kitagawa Ryo's room and sat there alone, lighting the three candles.

"Next, it's time to make a wish, right."

"I hope... my mother's illness gets better soon."

She blew at the three flickering flames in her field of vision, feeling dazed and hazy.

She didn't know how long she had slept. Squinting her eyes, she tapped on her phone to see nearly ten missed calls and unread messages, all from the same person.

"Hello, Ryo."

Without bothering to read them, she decided it would be easier to just call him back. Even though her mental state was somewhat unstable, Ichinose Honami still made that decision.

"Honami?"

A familiar voice came from the other end of the receiver.

What will he say? Ask about my mother's condition? Express concern for how I'm doing? Or maybe offer a birthday gift?

"I'm right at your front door."

The voice on the other side refuted all of Ichinose Honami's fantasies; it wasn't a question, but a short, declarative statement.

"Eh?"

She was stunned for a second or two before Ichinose Honami stammered in reply:

"I—I'll come open the door for you now."

Standing outside the door, Kitagawa Ryo held a black umbrella in his left hand. Ichinose Honami didn't know when he had arrived; if counting from the time of the first missed call, he seemed to have been hesitating at the door for quite a while.

"You forgot your umbrella the night before last, and you didn't go get it yesterday, so I brought it back for you."

Kitagawa Ryo raised his eyes. Ichinose Honami, neatly tucked into her pink pajamas, presented a completely different, beautiful posture.

Her body and personality were approaching the future her mother had envisioned, but the rest of her remained, with no sense of reality, stuck in the past.

"Are you not feeling well?"

Noticing the unnatural flush on Ichinose Honami's face, Kitagawa Ryo reached out, but ultimately pulled his hand back. He could already feel the heat and dampness radiating from her.

"Aren't you coming in?"

Ichinose Honami didn't answer Kitagawa Ryo's question; she seemed fixated on why he was still just standing at the door with no intention of taking off his shoes to come inside.

"Are you waiting for me to go out instead?"

She swayed, looking as if she were truly about to step out the door in her slippers.

"Uh, alright."

Kitagawa Ryo always felt that Ichinose Honami was a bit strange today. The moment he finished changing his shoes and stepped into her home, his body was pressed against the door by Ichinose Honami. The girl's fully developed figure was right in front of him, her chest against his, her toes slightly raised. Her slender, graceful body was like a drawn bow, and her arms reached out from under his ribs to wrap around his back.

Her scorching breath hit Kitagawa Ryo's chest.

"Honami?"

Despite the incredibly intimate posture, the first thing Kitagawa Ryo felt was an inexplicable panic. He lowered his head and met Ichinose Honami's moist eyes; the way her azure pupils shimmered with tears almost caused him to lose his composure instantly.

Ichinose Honami had learned from a very young age how to put her mother at ease, so her crying had always been silent.

Tears fell drop by drop, like pearls from a broken string, tracing paths down her cheeks and soaking the clothes on Kitagawa Ryo's chest.

Some cry out of fear, some out of sorrow, and some out of joy.

Crying is always imbued with all sorts of meanings.

But right now, she was simply crying—silently, quietly, shedding tears.

Perhaps Ichinose Honami only just realized that even though she was sixteen this year, she was still just a child who hadn't reached adulthood. It was only because she had never been willing to see herself as a child that she had forgotten she still was one. Since she was already crying, she might as well cry to her heart's content and be a child again, thoroughly and completely.

There were only the two of them in the house right now.

And so, Ichinose Honami began to recount her thoughts in fragments. She was like a devout believer walking into a church, standing before the warm firelight, pouring out every feeling and thought to a kind priest in meticulous detail. She let go of all the details—the things she hated, the things she loved, and the things she had suppressed—holding them out in her hands for him to see.

She said she loved Hotaru so much, and she was especially grateful that Kitagawa Ryo had brought Hotaru home after she couldn't.

She said she loved him so much; in fact, every paper crane she had folded for him when she was twelve had "I love you" written on it.

The firelight flickered.

Beside the sleeping girl, the burning candle wept drop by drop, until its base could no longer support its weight, and the remaining half of the candle rolled to the side.

There, lay one paper crane after another.

Let's start a bounty.

First, I must clarify that this book has an outline. Regarding the main plot that has been mentioned in the review section, I have definitely made preparations for it. The main plot will likely begin around the 200,000-word mark. The purpose of the simulator is to let the protagonist understand the characters' backstories and provide a "cheat." Most Classroom of the Elite fanfictions start from the entrance ceremony, but I wrote this book this way because I am personally interested in what happened to many characters before they enrolled.

However, since everyone has been urging me to speed up the progress, and since I have some free time to write during the May Day holiday, let's start a bounty.

Starting from midnight today, for every 400 recommendation votes, 40 monthly tickets, or 4,000 in tips, I will add one 4,000-word chapter, up to a limit of ten chapters. This is already my limit.

Finally, thank you all for reading, and please leave any suggestions in the review section.

Chapter 21: Fireworks Are Cold (End)

"Around 5:00 PM on July 20th, a fire broke out on the fourth floor of a four-story apartment building in Nakano Ward. Fortunately, the unit where the fire started had been vacant for a year, so there were few combustibles, and firefighters arrived in time to extinguish the blaze using high-pressure water hoses and fire extinguishing bombs. Regarding the cause of the fire, firefighters stated that it has not yet been investigated. This incident resulted in one minor injury, and the individual has been sent to the hospital for treatment."

Karuizawa Kei picked up the remote and turned off the TV. Before this, she had been sitting motionless on the sofa for thirty minutes. If not for this movement, one might have mistaken her for a silent statue sitting in a temple. But unlike those clay-bodied, gold-leafed Bodhisattvas, the gaze she cast toward the person opposite her was colder and fiercer than a demon's. This layer of coldness stretched out like a wall between her and Ichinose Honami.

"Why were you lighting candles in his vacant room?"

Karuizawa Kei's words struck Ichinose Honami like an axe. Sparks of memory crackled and popped; the most distant memories and the most recent ones surged from the well of her heart, colliding in her mind—the boy kicking open the door and the paper cranes burning in the fire.

"What does it have to do with you?"

Ichinose Honami felt an inexplicable irritation at Karuizawa Kei's anger. She stared at Karuizawa Kei's face, let out a laugh, and repeated her words:

"What does this have to do with you?"

As her tone turned serious, she seemed to regain her composure. No matter how friendly Ichinose Honami was, she was still the student council president, and she naturally possessed a certain aura of leadership.

In the past, Karuizawa Kei had lived in fear of this kind of aura, mostly because the leaders of girls' cliques could often control the public opinion of an entire class. She had suffered at the hands of such people for two years in middle school, so when Ichinose Honami's expression turned cold, she actually felt a bit afraid.

"...Still the same."

Ichinose Honami shook her head as she watched Karuizawa Kei waver. After Kitagawa Ryo was hospitalized for a second time yesterday due to the fire she had caused, the mistress of the Kitagawa Family had finally flown back to Tokyo on the earliest flight this morning. The result was that both Ichinose Honami and Karuizawa Kei had been sent home by the disgruntled mother.

"Can't get through, can't reach him."

Now it was Ichinose Honami's turn to guard her phone. She looked at the unread messages and unanswered calls, a strange pain welling up in her heart, like watching someone sink into the ocean before her eyes until they disappeared completely.

"..."

Silence returned. Ichinose Honami seemed to realize that her previous words had been a bit harsh and was weighing how to apologize to Karuizawa Kei. But before she could speak, the phone screen lit up. Both of them leaned in simultaneously, but unfortunately, it was a call from Ichinose's mother.

As soon as she answered, her mother, who was still feeling unwell, spoke cautiously:

"The landlord contacted me. Those rooms were properties bought by the Kitagawa Family long ago, so we have to negotiate the compensation with them directly... You know your mother doesn't have a good relationship with them, and we really don't have any extra money at home right now. Honami, Honami, go talk to him. Just for the sake of being neighbors for over a decade."

"Mm, I'll go talk to Ryo."

Ichinose Honami sniffled, though her tone inevitably carried a hint of nasal congestion.

"...That's good. It's not that Mother wants to lecture you, but Honami, you shouldn't have gone there in the first place. This whole thing could have been avoided. Thank goodness the house was empty. If it had burned down and caught our house or the neighbors downstairs, it would have been a crime. How would people look at the Ichinose family then? How would they look at Honami?"

The mother's voice on the other end clearly relaxed, and she immediately began to nag Ichinose Honami just as she always had.

"Mother, get some rest. I have things to do."

For the first time, Ichinose Honami felt annoyed by her mother's words. She hung up the phone immediately after saying that.

"If only you could have responded like that earlier."

In the silent room, Karuizawa Kei had easily heard the entire conversation. She said, not without sarcasm.

She wanted to take this opportunity to dig deep into Ichinose Honami's heart; Karuizawa Kei felt that she would never be able to understand the other girl.

However, she soon realized that Ichinose Honami had no intention of speaking further. She just sat there with her eyes closed, looking as if her soul had left her body, and began to sob uncontrollably.

To be fair, although Karuizawa Kei had never been fond of Ichinose Honami, seeing her sobbing right in front of her made her feel a sudden pang of sympathy. Yet, this was immediately followed by the thought that Ichinose Honami's behavior was truly laughable; Kitagawa Ryo had given her so many chances, yet she had pushed them away time and time again.

While she found the weeping girl pathetic, tears began to well up in her own eyes as well, as if the emotion of sorrow could spread and infect others, even though they were crying for entirely different reasons.

Suddenly, Karuizawa Kei experienced a strange sense of pleasure. Watching Ichinose Honami's tear-streaked face and feeling her pain and sorrow, she felt inexplicably comforted. The more Ichinose suffered, the better she felt. It is said that if a person's emotions are truly heart-wrenching, they can be transmitted to those around them, and right now, Karuizawa Kei could feel the emotions radiating from Ichinose Honami.

This pleasure caused her to instinctively step closer to Ichinose Honami, offering her own shoulder to receive the other girl's tears, and pulling her into an embrace from a position of superiority. Their roles had suddenly swapped, as if Karuizawa Kei were the leader and Ichinose Honami had become the one being bullied.

Ichinose Honami leaned into the embrace, no longer caring who was holding her. She just needed a good, cathartic cry. In truth, she had already cried yesterday, and Ichinose Honami had begun to fear this version of herself that wept so easily. She felt that tears were a seal restricting her growth; every time she cried, it seemed harder to smile the way she used to.

"If you had been more decisive earlier, Ichinose-san, and followed your heart—whether by clearly accepting or refusing—things wouldn't have ended up like this."

Karuizawa Kei lowered her head to whisper these "comforting" words into her ear. She knew full well that this feigned consolation was merely twisting the knife in the other girl's wound. Ichinose Honami cried even harder than before, so much so that Karuizawa Kei subconsciously asked herself: Was she doing this on purpose? If it was intentional, why was she doing it?

Yet, at that moment, Karuizawa Kei felt as if her mind and body had separated. She could no longer control her mouth, as if it had detached itself to become an independent organ. She found herself continuing to cut deeper into that wound:

"Actually, the date that senior had with you that day—he had been planning it for days. The grandest ceremony had long been prepared on that mountaintop you never visited. How could the Kitagawa Family possibly have any construction projects there? Those people were just waiting on standby."

Her goal was achieved, even to a degree that made Karuizawa Kei feel a bit frightened. She hadn't yet adapted to this shift in roles, like an actor who had improvised lines on stage only to be met with such thunderous applause from the audience that she didn't know how to react.

Karuizawa Kei realized she might have lit the fuse of a firework, yet she had no idea how it would burn next or what kind of sparks it would bloom into in the sky. She only felt, by instinct, that she had pushed things into a more complicated direction. What surprised her even more was that she was still speaking:

"Actually, I'm quite curious—what did you feel, Ichinose-san, when you heard on the phone that senior was my boyfriend?"

Karuizawa Kei felt like she had gone mad, but then she remembered biting her lip while watching the interactions between Ichinose Honami and Kitagawa Ryo in the hospital just two days ago, and she felt a sudden sense of ease. She felt like the villainous woman in a soap opera who destroys someone else's relationship, but the next instant, she sneered and denied it.

"You really are a girl who never gives up, Ichinose-san."

"But it would be better to give up on him now, because he's running out of patience, too."

"To destroy someone, psychological violence seems much more effective than physical violence. You always accommodate others at your own expense, Ichinose-san, yet you've been hurting senior Kitagawa's heart all along."

"...Stop it."