Classroom of the Elite, I Have a Life Simulator

"I don't believe you."

"Then why ask if you already know?"

Horikita Manabu let out a wry smile at those words:

"But are you truly confident that you can remain in Tokyo?"

"I am."

Kitagawa Ryo rested his chin on his hand, watching the vehicles and crowds passing by outside the window:

"That person will definitely make a move."

"Have you ever read The Little Prince, Horikita?"

After Kitagawa Ryo finished his call and returned to the room, Horikita Suzune had already finished her shower and was sitting on the sofa, reading the copy of The Little Prince that Kitagawa Ryo had brought back yesterday.

"I read it when I was very young, but I've forgotten quite a bit of it by now."

Horikita Suzune sat with her legs neatly together, turning the pages. Her hair was still slightly damp, and her entire presence carried a hint of moisture because of it.

"Do you identify with the fox in the story, Horikita?"

Kitagawa Ryo suddenly asked this question. The fox was one of the creatures the Little Prince encountered on Earth. The fox asked the Little Prince to tame him, so that the fox could stand out from the thousands of other foxes and become the Little Prince's one and only fox; in return, the Little Prince would become the fox's one and only little boy.

"'One only understands the things that one tames.' Taming is just another name for establishing a connection."

Horikita Suzune slowly flipped through the book. She had indeed read this classic; after browsing for a short while, she recalled the content of the story.

"Becoming each other's one and only is meaningless, which is why the fox was eventually abandoned by the Little Prince."

"So, this so-called taming—the very act of establishing a connection—is also meaningless."

Horikita Suzune seemed to still be hung up on the matter of making friends. She stubbornly insisted that one could survive perfectly well on their own.

"But you clearly want to establish a connection with your brother. Or rather, that is exactly what you have been trying to do all along."

Kitagawa Ryo found Horikita Suzune difficult to understand, just as Horikita Suzune was still unclear about why Kitagawa Ryo had become friends with Horikita Manabu.

"Are you implying that I am a fox who has been chasing after someone, unable to even catch a glimpse of their shadow?"

"Is there a difference?"

"It's not the same."

Horikita Suzune put down the book in her hand, pursed her lips, and argued defensively:

"I feel... it's different."

"You say you want to follow in your brother's footsteps, but Manabu himself has actively rejected your philosophy."

Kitagawa Ryo handed the photo of the two of them on the table to Horikita Suzune:

"Do you want to give it a try?"

"Try what?"

"Try establishing a connection with someone else."

Kitagawa Ryo showed her a photo of Karuizawa Kei:

"How about trying to make a friend?"

Horikita Suzune's eyes wandered, unwilling to answer. For a moment, she truly didn't want to negate the philosophy she had held onto for so long, much like a child who knows they are wrong but stubbornly refuses to apologize.

"...Fine."

"Then let's start with the first step. How about we try to become friends?"

Kitagawa Ryo also felt he was moving too fast, so he put away his phone and spoke again.

"Do you want me to tame you?"

Horikita Suzune raised her eyes without hesitation, a look of eagerness flickering in her violet-red pupils.

"Impossible."

Kitagawa Ryo shook his head:

"I have already been tamed by a rose long ago."

521 Side Story IF Route Poll

I originally intended to write a side story for 520 yesterday, but I forgot, so I'll move it to today. Readers who see this can leave a comment to vote for the side story they want to see. I'll likely write it in the next day or two; it won't affect the regular updates.

There are currently four ideas:

1. A follow-up to the Ichinose Honami TE.

2. An IF route for Sakayanagi Arisu, specifically the "Oedipus Rex" sub-ending from Ichinose Honami's third simulation.

3. An IF route for Shiina Hiyori, set in the current simulation where Kitagawa Ryo never met Karuizawa Kei.

4. An IF route for Karuizawa Kei, set in the second simulation where Ichinose Honami did not kill Kitagawa Ryo.

I will write the one with the most comments first, and decide on the others later.

Chapter 18: Malice... Malice

Emi Eura's father was a complete drunkard and gambler, which was the reason he had been fired from his company. After becoming unemployed, the man didn't realize his own problems; instead, he threw himself into various forms of gambling with even greater recklessness.

"Drugs and women are all losing games; only gambling has a chance to win back what you lose!"

Emi Eura still remembered how, when she was a child, her father would pick his teeth while shamelessly demanding money from her mother:

"Once I win, you'll all see what I'm capable of."

But the end result was that the Eura family fell into over ten million yen of debt. The more he gambled, the more he lost; the more he lost, the more he gambled. He pushed all their capital into the abyss, gritted his teeth, and took out high-interest loans. Those loans, with interest compounding like a demon with a gaping scarlet maw, swallowed the entire Eura family whole.

Unable to gamble any further, the man turned to heavy drinking. He still had no intention of going out to work to pay off the debt. His daily life became a cycle of binge drinking, vomiting, and passing out. Her mother had to work odd jobs to supplement their income and scrape together money for the monthly debt payments, so for a long time, Emi Eura was left at home to look after the drunken sot.

Cleaning up the man's vomit was one of Emi Eura's most practiced yet painful chores. Those viscous substances, mixed with the pungent, sour stench of cheap liquor, were like the boulders Sisyphus could never push to the top of the mountain in Greek mythology. Just as she finished cleaning up, exhausted, she would find that the man had already brazenly vomited all over the bed again.

When she was seven, Emi Eura seriously considered whether she should wrap her father in a transparent plastic sheet so that she would only have to clean the plastic wrapping once a day, but that was just a passing thought.

After starting elementary school, Emi Eura seemed to carry that lingering, fishy stench with her everywhere. This smell naturally excluded her from others, just as she would stand alone at the school gate after class, waiting for parents who never came to pick her up.

All Emi Eura could see were the legs of adults and the wheels of cars. She looked up, and the parents and vehicles formed walls. She wove through this forest of walls, carefully making her way out.

Kicking someone when they are down is a skill humans learn without being taught. Even children understand this principle; after all, everyone knows that elevating oneself is difficult, but stepping on others is easy. Since both can achieve the goal of elevating oneself, choosing the easier path is only natural.

Trampling on people or things lower than oneself brings a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. After becoming a target of bullying, Emi Eura seemed to turn into a cheap teddy bear, responsible for manufacturing cheap entertainment for her classmates. Whenever she was teased and made a fool of herself, as long as one person started laughing, the whole class would giggle along.

During those days, Emi Eura noticed the existence of Karuizawa Kei. Unlike Emi Eura's silence from beginning to end, Karuizawa Kei was a child accustomed to apologizing. Her tears were both abundant and fervent, yet she didn't realize that her apologies and tears were of no use.

Bullies treat their victims like a spinning top being whipped; the faster you spin and the more violently you react, the more excited they become.

Emi Eura felt a sense of closeness, akin to shared misfortune. She began to take the initiative to ask around for information about Karuizawa Kei. One snowy winter, she was gathering the courage to become friends with Karuizawa Kei, who was also a victim of bullying.

The snow was heavy that day, and Emi Eura's shoes crunched in the snow. She took heavy step after heavy step, listening to the snow shattering like glass beneath her feet. From childhood until now, she had grown up smelling others like a dog, and she judged that Karuizawa Kei was the same kind of person as her.

Emi Eura wanted to try to huddle together with Karuizawa Kei for warmth. She felt they must have common topics and could surely become friends.

But she saw Karuizawa Kei standing with another boy. The boy lowered his head and said to Karuizawa Kei:

"I'm going to transfer to your school."

From that boy's gaze and words, Emi Eura felt something that made her panic. It was an emotion called affection.

She immediately remembered the scenes of her and Karuizawa Kei having their hair pulled by boys at school. Emi Eura suddenly felt betrayed.

She and Karuizawa Kei were both clearly living on thin ice at school; their every day was equally fragile, and they were both targets of bullying.

But.

Emi Eura watched the two of them not far away, almost gritting her teeth.

Karuizawa Kei actually had a boy who liked her, and he even seemed to be planning to pull Karuizawa Kei out of this sea of misery.

The boy's name was Kitagawa Ryo; this was a fact Emi Eura learned later. However, by the time she heard the name, he had already become the center of the entire school, because the moment he transferred, he had unceremoniously put an end to the bullying in the class using the crude method of fighting fire with fire.

Emi Eura had the fortune of witnessing that fight. Kitagawa Ryo's strikes were extremely measured—the kind of fighting style that would make people scream in pain but actually cause no real injuries. When she heard some girls nearby discussing how "hitting people is wrong," she let out a cold snort.

The effect of this fight was immediate. The school bullying Karuizawa Kei faced vanished as if it had never existed.

While Emi Eura watched Karuizawa Kei's life return to normal with hatred and jealousy, she began to pick up the shattered pieces of herself one by one and put them back into a human shape. Since violence was useful, she would just use violence to solve problems.

Emi Eura began to carry a fruit knife with her. She hid the knife in her school bag. One day, when she was cornered by boys after school as usual, she suddenly pulled the knife from her bag. It was only a four-centimeter blade, but the boys still retreated in unison.

On one hand, they were afraid of the cold, gleaming little knife in Emi Eura's hand; on the other, they felt that Emi Eura was smiling eerily at that moment, just like the blade in her hand—bright, flashing, and terrifying.

Emi Eura stared at them for a long time until the boys shouted to each other and left. After they were gone, Emi Eura's spirit and body collapsed all at once, falling to the ground in a heap. She sat there crying with the knife for a long while before slowly walking back.

Karuizawa Kei and Kitagawa Ryo's relationship grew increasingly harmonious. They spent almost all day together. At noon, the two would sit in the courtyard to eat their bento. Every day, Emi Eura could see Karuizawa Kei relaxing her body and speech in front of Kitagawa Ryo, as if she wanted to open every pore to breathe the air around him. Sitting beside him, she naturally constructed a closed space.

Karuizawa Kei was free to be willful in this space. She said whatever she wanted in front of Kitagawa Ryo; she complained when she had grievances and shared good news when she had it. Whatever she asked, Kitagawa Ryo could answer, like an omniscient encyclopedia.

Emi Eura stood in a corner nearby, skinning a frog with a toothpick. The act itself didn't bring her any pleasure, but after someone in class saw it last time, many girls began to keep their distance from her, so she started to become keen on such actions.

She felt like the little match girl in the fairy tale, watching Karuizawa Kei in the freezing snow, thinking of stealing some of her light. Day after day was like match after match. When Karuizawa Kei finished her bento and packed up, Emi Eura would also incidentally stick the toothpick into the frog's head and throw it into the trash can.

On the day of the graduation photo, Emi Eura's class was lined up behind Karuizawa Kei and Kitagawa Ryo's class. During the remainder of their time in elementary school, although she was no longer bullied, she was effectively ostracized. Emi Eura stood alone to the side, like a strange tree growing horizontally out of a cliff, standing there both stubbornly and abruptly.

Emi Eura raised her eyes and, through the gaps between people, saw the two of them secretly holding hands in the crowd.

Kitagawa Ryo disappeared.

Karuizawa Kei entered middle school alone. On the first day of school, Emi Eura noticed that she and Karuizawa Kei had been assigned to the same class.

She took the initiative to elevate Karuizawa Kei to the core position among the girls in the class. The only lesson Emi Eura had learned from her father was that if you want to make a gambler lose more, you have to let him win a few times first.

Karuizawa Kei was still childish to the point of being ridiculous. Emi Eura led and guided her step by step through the transformation from a victim to a bully. She thought bitterly that if it weren't for the appearance of Kitagawa Ryo back then, Karuizawa Kei would have already become like this.

Then, by using the rumors from Wakata, she could logically brand Karuizawa Kei as a "murderer" and a "bully," allowing herself to transform into the side representing "justice" and use this as a pretext to take proper revenge on Karuizawa Kei.

But what she didn't expect was that Karuizawa Kei seemed to truly consider her a friend.

Emi Eura almost laughed out loud when she realized this.

Karuizawa Kei didn't even know her in elementary school, let alone bully her, but in her heart, Karuizawa Kei was far more detestable than those bullies. Seeing Karuizawa Kei humbly begging in front of her, one half of Emi Eura was enjoying this expected result, while the other half of Emi Eura still wasn't satisfied, even wanting to go all out to destroy this humble plea entirely, unwilling to leave Karuizawa Kei a shred of dignity.

Emi Eura had a knife in her bag that day. Over the past two years, she had become accustomed to carrying it. She decided that on that day, she would officially inflict a pain upon Karuizawa Kei that she would remember for a lifetime. She knew that Karuizawa Kei would definitely wear that white dress Kitagawa Ryo had given her on that day.

She was waiting to stain this dress red with blood.

As Emi Eura filled her heart with fantasies of hope and friendship, she received no response in return, and so those feelings transformed into an equal measure of the desire for revenge. Perhaps this emotion had been shadowing her long before, but it was only in the last two years that it finally found a target for its vengeance.

Then, Kitagawa Ryo returned.

And so, Emi Eura thought of a better way to take revenge on Karuizawa Kei.

She would personally destroy Karuizawa Kei's pillar of support, regardless of the consequences.

[I just hate you. You clearly treated me as a friend. I hate that you realized my wishes before I did, I hate that you are living better than me, I hate that you, who once shared my misery, now have a better future than I do. I also hate my own cowardice, I hate that I wasn't lucky enough to be born into a better family, I hate that I lack the talent to change my circumstances. I am giving all the hatred I feel for myself to you, using it all to hate you.]

"I want to have a private meeting with Emi Eura."

After sending Horikita Suzune away, Kitagawa Ryo dialed Karuizawa Kei's number and spoke without any preamble.

"Is that so..."

On the other end of the line, Karuizawa Kei neither agreed nor denied it.

"Yeah, I'm hanging up now."

Just as Kitagawa Ryo was about to end the call, Karuizawa Kei suddenly shouted:

"Wait a minute!"

"Didn't we agree that we would go see her together?"

She suddenly rejected Kitagawa Ryo's words.

"Don't... don't go anywhere. I'm coming over right now. Ryo, Ryo needs to stay by my side."

It was a tone of firm resolve that made Kitagawa Ryo hold his breath. Never before had she stated a fact with such seriousness.