Classroom of the Elite, I Have a Life Simulator 26

"I."

She wrote on the palm of her right hand:

"K."

"The handle of that umbrella is engraved with I&K, the initials of our names."

"And then?"

She took the form from Kusakabe Ayako's hand and nimbly folded it into a paper crane.

"Ah, I forgot."

Kusakabe Ayako watched in silence as the other girl looked regretful, unfolded the paper, and drew a thick, sweeping line across the crime of "Causing the death of Kitagawa Ryo":

"I like you."

As a psychologist, Kusakabe Ayako rarely admitted defeat, but facing Ichinose Honami, she felt a sense of helplessness for the first time. She walked out of the room, thinking this while looking at the paper crane in her hand.

She cast her gaze into the empty room.

Ichinose Honami had fallen asleep clutching that birthday card, the corners of her mouth turned upward as if she were having a sweet dream.

Chapter 29: Once More

[You brush aside the scene before your eyes with your hand. You are standing in a long corridor filled with fragments of dreams. The surrounding walls, the ceiling, and even the floor beneath your feet are all playing various clips:]

["No... it won't work." In a late autumn park, Ichinose Honami rejects someone's confession.]

["We don't want it. It might just get thrown away as trash anyway, so please take it back." At a temple on a hillside, Ichinose Honami hands an unopened fortune slip back to a monk.]

["Since Ryo is fine, I'll head back first. Mom will worry if I get home too late, and I still have to tell Maki about your current situation." In a stark white hospital room, Ichinose Honami, who had rushed over through the rain, leaves in a hurry after seeing someone only once.]

[And finally, Ichinose Honami's shadow is cast on the ground by the rising fireworks. The sudden flickering of light makes her shadow stretch and enlarge for an instant. That shadow twists forward, hideous yet frail, tightly gripping a knife.]

["Such... a familiar feeling."

You recall the last sentence Hotaru said in your mind just moments ago:

"Then anywhere will do. It's all her unconscious nightmare anyway; any one of them is the same."]

["Is this the nightmare Ichinose Honami created unconsciously?"

"But it's too realistic."

You step forward, one pace at a time. No matter how bizarre a person's dream may be, it must be transformed from some prototype in reality or an event that has already occurred. Yet, this ocean of nightmares belonging to Ichinose Honami always gives you the feeling that it actually happened.

"It's as if it's another parallel universe."]

[You lift your eyes to look at the light screen blocking your path. After the shoplifting incident, Ichinose Honami shut herself away for half a year before finally entering Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School.]

[This seems to be the only timeline without your presence.

You stand there, watching Ichinose Honami's struggle in silence.

"If Nagumo-senpai can lend me four million private points to ensure Class B isn't expelled, I can agree to Nagumo-senpai's request to date."

Ah, ah, how strange.

How could someone make a statement that completely disregards herself? You reach out and brush this scene away.]

["If she is truly in a difficult position, I want to help her. For anyone's sake, I will give it my all within the scope of my abilities. Even if such behavior will sooner or later drive me into a dead end." Ichinose Honami declares this.

It's too strange. Is Ichinose Honami really this kind of girl? Hey, hey, this can't be called leadership at all. If such an obvious weakness is discovered by an opponent, she will never be able to recover for the rest of her life.

"It's a bit lonely lately with only me and Honami having lunch. After all, the student council is busy with many affairs, but the upside is that we can confide in each other when we encounter troubles." The hypocritical smile of the annoying blond guy at your feet makes you feel a bit nauseated. You step on his face and continue moving forward.]

["No, I can't find it this way."

You feel more and more information flooding into your brain. Even if your mental fortitude is much stronger than the average person's, it doesn't mean you can memorize all the information here in one go and then distinguish the truth from the lies to find the clues Ichinose Honami left for you.

"If this is Ichinose Honami's dream."

"Then, under what circumstances would a person place their fantasies into a dream?"

"What kind of person would pin their hopes on a dream?"

"And what kind of person is the Ichinose Honami in your memory?"

You simply stop paying attention to all the information surrounding you. Using the most rigid and violent method of thinking, you integrate the remaining memories in your brain, the elements that make up the current situation, the clues, the candidate answers, and the materials for judgment, returning to the most primitive point of the problem.]

["There must be, there must be a clue I missed."

"If the first dream I entered without memory was Ichinose Honami's most primitive dream, then there must be a clue I haven't found yet."

"But how do I return to that dream now?"

You tap your head, forcing yourself to focus only on this one question.

"Assuming the first dream was accepted by 'Ichinose Honami' as the true reality, then it is indeed a timeline she might have fantasized about. For example, in the timeline I just saw where she stabbed me to death with a knife, she, having committed the crime of killing her childhood friend, would likely crave such a beautiful dream where I didn't leave her in the dream, and we fell in love and got married... If a person wants to return from a dream to reality, would committing suicide in the dream be a good idea?"]

[You slowly cover your nose and mouth with both hands, suppressing your breathing bit by bit just like when you competed with other children to see who could hold their breath the longest during childhood. Soon, your lungs began to wail again.

As if to curb this self-destructive behavior, your heart beats much faster than before, and your brain is ringing, wanting to pull your body back into reality.

The strength in your knees, the strength in your body—the illusion that it is all slipping away. A sense of collapse. Or... a feeling bordering on nothingness wells up from within your heart.

The boundary between life and death begins to blur.]

The human body craves survival, yet your stubborn consciousness is suppressing your survival instinct at this very moment.

The dream before you continues to loop over and over again.

"If Nagumo-senpai can lend me four million private points to ensure Class B isn't expelled, I can agree to Nagumo-senpai's request to date."

How could a girl say such self-degrading things? Especially you, Ichinose Honami; not even in a dream should you say that.

"One more time."

As your vision gradually fades to black, your lips, already turned pale blue from suffocation, curl upward, tracing a smile filled with expectation.

"Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo."

You jolt awake from the bed, gasping for air like a drowning person taking their first breath of fresh air. You sit up, emitting ragged, terrified breaths. The woman sleeping beside you is awakened by the noise; she groggily presses the button on the bedside lamp, and the warm, bright yellow light instantly envelops the two of you.

"Did you have a nightmare, Ryo?"

Ichinose Honami also sits up and pulls you into her embrace. Being woken up by a bedmate is never a pleasant experience, but she seems not to care at all, simply pulling you into her arms with tenderness, speaking in a lazy, soft voice:

"I told you not to take those strange medicines the doctor prescribed before bed. Forget it, I'll just throw them away tomorrow."

She gently pats your back with her hand, her delicate lips leaning close to your ear:

"It's okay, it's okay. I'm here. I've always been here."

While sorting through the chaotic memories in your mind and calming your heartbeat after your brush with death, you ask cautiously:

"Doctor? Is it Doctor Sakayanagi?"

"Of course. I've said before that this psychologist speaks in riddles and isn't trustworthy. Besides, it's not like there's anything wrong with Ryo after losing his memory. Since we've been married for half a year, I have the responsibility to take care of you, and I can take very good care of you."

She slides her hands under your armpits to wrap around your back, and you feel Ichinose Honami rubbing her face against your chin.

You glance around the room and notice a box of capsules sitting on the bedside table to your right, with a piece of paper resembling a prescription slip pressed underneath it.

You reach out to take the paper and, under the dim lamp, begin to decipher the words on it bit by bit:

"Name: Kitagawa Ryo. Symptoms: Amnesia. After communicating with the patient, we suggest taking..."

...This handwriting, it's so familiar. You suddenly realize with a jolt of horror that the handwriting on this prescription slip is almost identical to the handwriting on a document you saw earlier—was it the note that said "Don't believe anything Ichinose Honami says," or was it the love letter Ichinose Honami claimed Kitagawa Ryo wrote to her?

No, you clearly remembered it just a moment ago, but in the next second, the style of the handwriting, and even the very existence of the love letter and the note itself, begin to slip away from your memory, like fine sand slowly pouring through an hourglass.

"What... what time is it?"

"Ah, it's 5:57. It'll be dawn soon. What would you like to eat for breakfast, Ryo?"

"You lose your memory every morning at dawn."

You suddenly recall this unreasonable setting. You hurriedly break free from Ichinose Honami's embrace and rush into the living room without even putting on your shoes. Sure enough, just as in your memory, there is a landline telephone there. You hurriedly dial Sakayanagi Arisu's number.

"Hello, this is the psychologist Sakayanagi Arisu."

The next second, that same cold, clear voice comes from the other end. You have no time to think; the rate at which your memory is fading is even faster than you imagined. In the vase on the windowsill, flowers sway left and right in the morning breeze. The shadows of the sunlight seem as if they will cross them in the next second and spill into this home.

"I am Kitagawa Ryo, your patient number one!"

You almost roar the words, but quickly realize Ichinose Honami's presence and immediately hold your breath, whispering:

"If I call you again, no matter how much time has passed, you must tell me:

'Climb over the windowsill and jump down from there.'"

"Hm? Although I don't understand what you mean, is there anything else you want to say?"

Sakayanagi Arisu asks with confusion, but the next second, only a busy signal comes from the receiver.

Ichinose Honami picks up the receiver that fell to the floor and gently places it back on the cradle. She walks over and embraces you as you stand there, dazed.

"Um, who am I? And who are you? Where am I right now?"

You seem to have forgotten many things. By the time you come to your senses, you can already feel the warmth in your embrace.

Ichinose Honami looks up and presses her right index finger against your lips:

"I am your wife, and you are Kitagawa Ryo, my, Ichinose Honami's, husband."

"We have been married for two hundred and thirty-seven days, and there are one hundred and twenty-eight days left until our wedding anniversary."

"Don't be afraid. I will always be with you."

"Yeah."

Under her gentle words, you completely give up on thinking and collapse into her arms.

"Hey, hey, Eiichiro, Ryo has been sleeping here for a whole day now. Is he really okay?"

Nanase Tsubasa tugs on her childhood friend Matsuo Eiichiro, who is standing beside her. She looks with some concern at Kitagawa Ryo, who has been lying motionless on the hospital bed, having lost consciousness for an entire day. On the bed next to him, Ichinose Honami also lies quietly; both of them have steady breathing, as if they are merely asleep.

"When it comes down to it, it was you who insisted on letting Ryo go to Tokyo to find Ichinose Honami. Look at the result—now both of them have ended up like this."

Seeing that Matsuo Eiichiro has no desire to speak, Nanase Tsubasa stomps her feet in frustration.

"There was no other way. Ever since Ryo was kicked out of the White Room at fourteen, he has been in a state of constant amnesia. Aside from Ichinose Honami, his childhood friend who spent their early years together before he was ten, I can hardly think of anyone else who has a chance to awaken his memories."

Matsuo Eiichiro purses his lips, looking at his friend on the hospital bed with concern.

He falls into silence after saying this. For a time, only the rhythmic breathing of the four people remains in the hospital room, to the point that the sound made by the white cat suddenly moving attracts both of their attention immediately.

"Hey, Hotaru, don't go running off at a time like this."

Matsuo Eiichiro hurriedly stepped forward to scoop up the white cat, which seemed intent on pouncing onto Kitagawa Ryo's face, but the usually well-behaved Hotaru acted as if she had seen something detestable, baring her teeth and emitting a low, rumbling growl from her throat.

"I heard that Ichinose-san and Ryo had been exchanging letters between the ages of ten and fourteen, but I never heard Ryo mention a single word about it. He didn't show any signs of memory loss in the first few months after he came out of that place, but thinking about it now, it's a bit suspicious."

Matsuo Eiichiro finally managed to calm Hotaru down and turned his gaze back to Ichinose Honami's face.

"Ryo kept his mouth shut back then about what exactly happened inside the White Room, and as his friend, I didn't feel it was my place to pry."

Just as Matsuo Eiichiro was lost in his doubts, the door to the hospital room was suddenly pushed open. The person who entered was not his father, who had arranged for the two of them to recuperate at the hospital, but a girl of about fifteen or sixteen years old leaning on a cane, followed by two burly men who appeared to be her bodyguards.

"Who are you?"

Matsuo Eiichiro's expression changed drastically. Unlike Nanase Tsubasa, he knew more than the average person due to his father's line of work, which was precisely why he understood just how sensitive Kitagawa Ryo's identity was. If those people truly found out that such an experimental subject had escaped from that place, his entire family, and even Nanase Tsubasa, could be implicated.

The silver-haired girl ignored Matsuo Eiichiro and walked straight to Kitagawa Ryo's bedside. Just as Matsuo Eiichiro tried to step forward to stop her, he was blocked by the burly men behind him.

Sakayanagi Arisu reached out to stroke Kitagawa Ryo's forehead, and she spoke in a soft voice:

"I never expected to reunite with you in a place like this. Honestly, I thought I would never see you again. This is truly a miraculous twist of fate."

"It has been two years and one hundred and twenty-eight days since we last met, Ryo."

"Or perhaps."

She smoothed out the furrowed brow of the boy on the hospital bed:

"Should I call you, brother?"

Chapter 30: Interwoven Dreams

"Hey, I don't care who you are or what your relationship with Ryo is, don't touch him right now!"

Matsuo Eiichiro shouted desperately at Sakayanagi Arisu while struggling to push past the two wall-like bodyguards.