Classroom of the Elite, I Have a Life Simulator

You hear yourself say this, and although you have lost your memory, your keen instincts still lead you to find three notes tucked into the seams of your robe's pocket.

The first: "If you feel confused, please call the psychiatrist Arisu Sakayanagi," followed by a string of contact information.

The second: "Meow meow meow meow meow." It is a phrase with no discernible meaning, and you are not yet sure if it is some strange code; it is signed by "Hotaru."

The third: "Do not trust what Honami Ichinose says, everything—Ryo Kitagawa."

After confirming that Honami Ichinose, the woman who claims to be your wife, has left the house, you dial the number for the psychiatrist Arisu Sakayanagi.

["Ryo Kitagawa, is this Mr. Kitagawa?"

On the other end, Arisu Sakayanagi, who calls herself a psychiatrist, lets out a light chuckle.

"You called me just yesterday; I didn't expect to hear from you again today."

"I have no recollection of that."

You cannot find a single trace of yesterday in your memory, so you cautiously probe:

"What did I say to you yesterday?"

"Hmm, let me see. I happen to have kept the recording from yesterday. Would you like to listen to it?"

"Yes, please. Sorry for the trouble."

"After all, you are my patient. It would be best if you recovered your memory as soon as possible."

The recording she plays for you next is not long. Aside from the exchange between you and her, it is filled with long stretches of white noise. You notice that yesterday, you would fall into a long silence every time you heard a specific term, but today, you accept the words "White Room" and "Matsuo Eiichiro" quite naturally, and memories related to them are gradually reviving in your mind.

"Well, this shows your condition is improving. Congratulations."

Arisu Sakayanagi seems pleased by your progress, and her typically calm voice now seems to carry a hint of a smile.

"Did I really jump off the windowsill yesterday?"

At the end of the recording, you hear her telling you to "jump off the windowsill."

"...If you had truly jumped from the windowsill, I don't think you would be able to talk to me so calmly right now."

"I suppose that's true."

You glance down from the window on the wall. The floor you are on is conservatively estimated to be six or seven stories up. If you had really jumped from here yesterday...

You touch your arms and legs; these parts are still perfectly attached to your body.

"Is there anything else?"

Arisu Sakayanagi on the other end of the line seems to have received another call; perhaps the daily life of a psychiatrist is just that busy.

"I'll call you again when I think of something."

You look at the clock hanging on the wall. It is only nine in the morning, and you feel you should continue searching this house for anything that might trigger your memories.]

[You first flip through the photo album that Honami Ichinose handed to you before she left, which contains some photos from your childhood.

This must be the album your parents put together. You think this because your individual portraits always have some handwriting on them. Like "Ryo studying hard," "Ryo playing soccer," or "Ryo loves sweets," written in neat, small script.

Unlike the handwriting you saw from Honami Ichinose on that wedding photo, this neat, fly-head-sized regular script is much more mature, and you vaguely conclude that this is your mother's handwriting.

Everyone has a childhood, and even as someone who has lost their memory, you can flip through this album and imagine yourself during that period.

Your gaze quickly stops on one of the photos.

"Happy 10th Birthday, Ryo!"

It seems this was taken at a birthday party. Where was it? The location doesn't look like this house; it looks more like a campsite in the wilderness. You can even see a car parked nearby. In the photo, you are smiling happily in front of a large cake with ten candles. Perhaps you were in the middle of eating; your cheeks are smeared with cream, and your large, lively eyes are wide open, startled by the camera's timer. Beside you, a man and a woman are smiling as they surround you.]

[You continue flipping toward the back and soon reach the end: a photo of you at sixteen with Honami Ichinose. You reach out to clip a hair accessory onto her in front of the lens. The smile on Honami Ichinose's face in the photo is so radiant—that you suddenly feel a wave of dizziness.

"Huh...?"

You cannot help but mutter aloud.

It is a sense of dissonance so abrupt that even you feel it. You feel as if you have discovered something that should not exist, something that cannot exist.

But at the same time—

There is also the feeling of finally finding something important that had been lost.

You hurriedly flip back through the pages, flipping, flipping continuously.

Avoiding, constantly backtracking.

But—nothing.

"That" is nowhere to be found.

The thing that absolutely should be there is not inside.

"Well, when you were sixteen, you went out with your aunt and uncle, but you got into a car accident on the way. You were the only one who survived, but you lost your memory."

You recall Honami Ichinose's words again.

Thinking about it carefully, there are other suspicious points.

Yes, there are so many, many more.]

[You place the three notes back in front of you.]

The first note: "If you have any doubts, please call psychologist Arisu Sakayanagi," followed by a string of contact information.

This was the only one of the three notes without a signature, yet the information on it was genuine. This contact number truly allowed you to reach the psychologist Arisu Sakayanagi, and from her, you obtained information regarding your memory. Furthermore, this was the only note printed with a machine font, resembling a business card.

The second note: "Meow meow meow meow meow," words of completely unclear meaning, signed "Hotaru."

Is this... a cat?

Looking at this string of meows, you had already constructed the image of a small white cat in your mind.

Why white?

You shook your head, but the cat in your memory only became clearer. Every single hair on its body was visible in exquisite detail, white as fresh snow, as it blinked its firefly-colored eyes at you.

Hotaru!

It was as if you had suddenly remembered it, and immediately after, like opening the floodgates of your memory, all your recollections of this cat surged into your mind at once.

You petting the cat at home... you picking it up on a rainy day... you seeing it being bullied near a doghouse in the village and bringing it home.

Why were there three distinct memories?

Holding your head, you sat down on the living room sofa. You read the second note over and over again, but that strange sensation from before never appeared a second time. At the very least, however, you had remembered your pet cat.

The third note: "Do not believe anything Ichinose Honami says--Kitagawa Ryo."

Having racked your brain for a long time without a lead, you turned your gaze to the third note, the one that had shocked you the most when you saw it this morning.

Ichinose Honami is the woman who tenderly cared for you on the morning you woke up with amnesia. She claims to be your wife. You also remember her saying this morning that today is your three-year wedding anniversary and ten-year dating anniversary. She will be getting off work early this evening, around 5:30.

You stood up and walked into the room where you had woken up. You first opened the wardrobe; the first things to catch your eye were various types of women's lingerie. This made you feel somewhat ashamed, but you took them down one by one and set them aside, reaching your hand deeper into the back. Your fingers felt a hard texture, and you pulled that object out.

It was a whiteboard that seemed to have not been used for a long time. Tutors at cram schools often used them, and you had heard that some families would buy a small one to hang at home, writing down daily tasks to remind the whole family.

The whiteboard was a dirty gray color, with many words scribbled on it, wiped clean, and replaced with new ones, changed over and over, each time leaving faint imprints behind.

You were curious. If time could be reversed and the words that had once been on the whiteboard could be reproduced layer by layer, what could you discover by using this method to delve into your past? But you understood that even if it were possible, the result would be futile, because looking through the few spots where the ink hadn't been fully wiped away, it was merely:

"Remember to take your medicine today."

"Don't open the door for strangers," and other simple phrases that contained almost no information.

You carried the whiteboard into the living room and compared its handwriting with the other two notes, excluding the first one. They did not match.

This whiteboard must have been used by 'Ichinose Honami' to remind 'you' after you lost your memory, which meant the 'Ichinose Honami' in this house was not the person who left you those two notes.

However, you always felt the handwriting on the whiteboard had a familiar feeling. You thought of the love letter Ichinose Honami had shown you this morning, which she claimed you had written to her.

You quickly retrieved the love letter, which was framed in glass, from the living room cabinet.

When you placed the two side by side, you discovered a fact:

The handwriting on both items was exactly the same.

You felt yourself falling into a subtle state of confusion.

You first determined that the Ichinose Honami you met when you woke up this morning was lying, and not just about one thing.

First, according to her, she lost her parents in a car accident when she was sixteen. But in the photo album from before she was sixteen, you couldn't find a single photo of her with her parents after the age of ten. Moreover, the small notes that had been recording her growth next to each photo were also gone. If she hadn't lost her parents until she was sixteen, such a situation would be impossible.

Second, according to her, you wrote this love letter to her when you were thirteen. But the handwriting on this love letter was the same as the handwriting on the whiteboard you found in the house. If the whiteboard was written by Ichinose Honami, then what was this? Did you write a love letter to yourself?

Rubbing your chin, you turned your gaze to the third note. These two discoveries seemed to prove its credibility.

"Do not believe anything Ichinose Honami says--Kitagawa Ryo."

Kitagawa Ryo was the name Ichinose Honami said was yours. On the surface, this was a clue left by the past you for the current you.

But.

You took a pen you found in the study and wrote your own name five times on a piece of paper.

They did not look like they were written by the same person as the name on the note.

You tried closing your eyes, or intentionally writing sloppily, but no matter how you deliberately changed your style, you could not write the three characters "Kitagawa Ryo" to look like the ones on the note.

Pacing in the living room, you pondered, and unexpectedly discovered something else: the "Kitagawa Ryo" on that object was almost identical to the one on the note.

"Is that so..."

Various clues converged in your mind, like different parts clicking into a main body with a mechanical snap, then locking together in a unique configuration that allowed for no other possibility.

Many small fragments finally drew toward the center, leading to a vague answer.

There was only one step left.

You made this judgment, and all that remained to do was wait.

At 5:25 PM, you dialed Arisu Sakayanagi's number again.

"Hello, this is psychologist Arisu Sakayanagi."

"Yes, this is Kitagawa Ryo."

"What have you remembered now?"

She let out a lazy yawn, seemingly noticing that it was getting late:

"I'm about to get off work."

"Is it five-thirty?"

"Hm? How did you know?"

Sakayanagi Arisu asked with some confusion, and she seemed to realize something:

"You..."

"Yeah, I know now."

"Is that so?"

Her voice sounded a bit lonely, but she quickly returned to normal:

"Congratulations, my patient number one. You can finally say goodbye to me, your psychiatrist."

"Yeah, goodbye."

You hung up the phone, and almost the moment you placed the receiver down, Ichinose Honami opened the door.

She looked at you with terror as you had already leaned half of your body out of the window, and she screamed almost instinctively:

"Ryo! Get down here right now!"

The wind outside the window rustled your hair, and without hesitation, you swung your other leg out of the window as well, immediately letting go of the hands that were supporting your body:

"See you later!"

You shouted your final words into the air as you fell toward the woman rushing toward you, but she failed to catch you as you plummeted downward in those final moments.

"Honami..."

"No, it should be Ms. Sakayanagi Arisu."

[You felt your body land on a furry back, and you reached out your hand to stroke the head of this giant beast.

"The dream is about to wake up."]