Classroom of the Elite, I Have a Life Simulator

"Ear mites?"

Muttering the term to herself, Ichinose Honami hugged her knees and crouched down in front of Hotaru.

"It seems to be in a lot of discomfort."

Seeming to realize that its cute-act had successfully targeted its mark, Hotaru scrambled up and began circling Ichinose, meowing plaintively.

Is this cat sure it hasn't become a supernatural being?

Twitching the corner of his mouth, Kitagawa Ryo handed over the medicine bottle.

"Since it's time for its medication anyway, why don't you help out?"

After a brief moment of hesitation, Ichinose Honami took it.

"How do I use this?"

Examining the bottle in her hand, Ichinose looked a bit hesitant.

"Just flip the cat's ear over and use a cotton swab to wipe the inside with the medicine. This is the best product for it; if applied correctly, the ear mites should be cleared up in about two to three weeks."

Kitagawa Ryo remembered the vet's instructions quite clearly. He found a pack of cotton swabs on the bookshelf, tore it open, and handed them to Ichinose Honami.

"Hotaru, be a good cat and don't move, okay? Just bear with it for a moment."

Dipping the cotton swab into the medicine, Ichinose Honami gently reached out, whispering something under her breath.

Kitagawa Ryo had been quite confident in his cat. In his eyes, Hotaru was a cat teetering on the edge of becoming a yokai—if it only had hands, it could have medicated itself. He hadn't expected the result to be...

"Meow!!"

The shrill, miserable shriek was enough to make the neighbors think someone was violently pounding on their door in the middle of the night.

"Embarrassing."

Watching Hotaru bolt onto the top of the sofa and refuse to come down, Kitagawa Ryo couldn't do much about it.

As for Ichinose Honami, she was currently caught in an awkward moment of existential doubt, though for someone who loved Hotaru as much as she did, a reaction of this magnitude was perhaps a bit hurtful.

Silently apologizing to Ichinose on behalf of his cat, Kitagawa Ryo stepped forward.

"Come here quickly. Do you want to get better or not?"

"Meow meow?"

"Hurry up, don't make me force you."

"Meow!"

"Are you two... having a conversation?"

Ichinose Honami, still clutching the cotton swab, asked cautiously.

"Not really, I don't even know what it's saying."

Turning to address Ichinose Honami, Kitagawa Ryo felt a bit impatient.

"Hurry up and come here, or I'm going to abandon you."

Whether it was a reaction to a specific word in Kitagawa Ryo's sentence, Hotaru hesitated for a moment before reluctantly walking over.

The moment it reached his striking range, Kitagawa Ryo acted decisively, pinning Hotaru firmly against the carpet. Amidst the cat's look of utter disbelief, he flashed a devilish grin at Ichinose Honami.

"Apply the medicine, quickly."

"Oh... okay."

After a moment of hesitation, Ichinose Honami stepped forward.

"Won't it hurt if you pin it down like that?"

"If I don't pin it down, it'll run off to who-knows-where. This is for its own good; it'll understand us. Quick, apply the medicine."

"You've worked hard, just bear with it a little longer, it'll be over soon."

Ichinose Honami didn't let Kitagawa Ryo down; she skillfully inserted the medicine-soaked swab into Hotaru's ear and finished the job in no time.

"Phew."

Breathing a sigh of relief, Kitagawa Ryo removed his guilty hands, ignoring Hotaru's teary-eyed expression.

"Let's watch TV, watch TV. I recorded this morning's Super Sentai."

Ichinose Honami was a child with a very strong sense of independence, which perhaps had to do with her family environment, yet when she was with Kitagawa Ryo, she let him take the lead.

Kitagawa Ryo excitedly turned on the TV and stood on his tiptoes to grab a large bottle of barley tea from the top shelf of the fridge. Once everything was ready, he sat down next to Ichinose Honami and casually pulled Hotaru, who was lying limp nearby, into his arms.

He tilted his head to look into the cat's glowing, firefly-colored eyes, rubbing his nose against its head. He smelled fresh and clean.

"Let me pet it."

Ichinose Honami leaned in from the side.

Kitagawa Ryo pushed Hotaru forward, but Ichinose Honami reached out and petted his head instead.

"Whoa."

Kitagawa Ryo recoiled in alarm.

"I'm not a cat."

Ichinose Honami nodded. She recalled a night a month ago when a drenched Kitagawa Ryo had knocked on their door holding this tiny kitten. Completely ignoring her mother's look of astonishment, he had stood there dripping water, poked his head inside, and shouted:

"Honami, let's raise this cat together."

Back then, Kitagawa Ryo looked more like a puppy caught in the rain.

"Meow."

Thinking this, she couldn't help but reach out to ruffle Kitagawa Ryo's hair. Kitagawa Ryo, focused intently on the television, didn't seem to want to fuss with her, only muttering:

"You just want to stunt my growth. I'm a year older than you, I'm the older brother."

Taking the opportunity to break free from Kitagawa Ryo's embrace, Hotaru jumped onto the windowsill, licking its little paws while squinting its eyes to enjoy the sunlight outside.

Kitagawa Ryo had already started shouting the finishing move slogans along with the Super Sentai show on TV. Ichinose Honami didn't know when she had leaned against his shoulder, hugging his arm and starting to doze off. However, judging by the way the girl's legs were swaying, she was likely just keeping her eyes closed.

This was an incredibly long summer—a summer where the tokusatsu show would never end, the kitten would never grow up, we could still ignore the gazes of others, freely snuggle together, and happiness was something easily obtained.

Chapter 10: Her and His Cat (Part 2)

At five in the afternoon, the conference room, which had just finished its second discussion regarding the school festival, finally quieted down. Only the soft whispers of the student council vice president giving instructions on trivial matters and the faint rustling of pen tips sliding across white paper remained.

A second-year middle school student wearing a uniform sat on the right, organizing the meeting report. He looked somewhat troubled, frequently rubbing his chin in thought or casting his gaze toward the student council vice president sitting nearby.

In the corner on the right side of the conference room, a beautiful girl with long, gold-pink hair was saying something to the person next to her. Her poised and generous demeanor was impressive, and the smiles she revealed from time to time made his heart race.

Seemingly having heard an interesting suggestion, the girl's azure eyes overflowed with laughter. Her figure, which was exceptionally stunning compared to her peers, made her every move full of charm.

Although he had heard before that the school's student council vice president, Ichinose Honami, was a beautiful "all-rounder," for him, having been elected as a class festival executive committee member only this year, this was his first time being in such close contact with her.

After the initial amazement, he quickly became infatuated with the girl. During the meeting that had just ended, he had tried hard to make suggestions and perform well. Whenever the girl's sparkling eyes rested on him, he felt filled with strength.

Disappointingly, although Ichinose Honami didn't have a cold, unapproachable personality—in fact, she could be said to be gentle and kind to everyone—she always gave him a sense of dissonance, as if she were just going through the motions. Perhaps this was merely him wishing for more special treatment.

It's about time.

Based on his observations over the past few days, he knew clearly that Ichinose Honami would leave around six o'clock, exiting through the school's east gate to take the subway home from the nearest station.

Sure enough, as soon as the clock in the conference room ticked past six, Ichinose Honami proposed leaving. The boy acted quickly, organizing the meeting report and finishing his tasks before hurriedly grabbing his bag and leaving.

At the very least, I'll talk to her alone and become friends.

Stories of sudden confessions leading to two people falling in love only exist in romance manga.

Thinking this, the boy slowed his pace after catching sight of Ichinose Honami's back, following her at a moderate distance.

She seems to be on the phone.

Noticing the girl's actions, the boy, who had originally intended to go up and strike up a conversation, hurriedly stopped his steps.

Unlike the smiling face she had in the conference room, Ichinose Honami looked somewhat sorrowful while on the phone. Her tightly pursed lips and the way she lightly bit her teeth made the boy almost subconsciously want to go up and comfort her.

"Okay, I understand."

Watching Ichinose Honami hang up the phone, the boy realized they had already walked out of the school's east gate. Thinking he would start the conversation with "Is Ichinose-san troubled by something?", he stepped forward quickly. Just as he was about to reach Ichinose Honami...

A black Mercedes-Benz S600 pulled up steadily in front of her. The boy in the passenger seat rolled down the window and waved at her. Ichinose Honami opened the back door and sat inside, leaving the boy with nothing but the departing taillights and a trail of exhaust.

"Ichinose's boyfriend is here to pick her up again."

"That's not her boyfriend, just a childhood friend. I heard he's the student council president of a nearby school and the captain of the soccer team."

"Is it that super famous private school?"

"And his family seems to be very rich, too."

"He's handsome, too."

Nearby girls chattered, unfazed by this, while the boy standing there experienced the first heartbreak of his life.

After the car window was rolled back up, the interior of the sedan seemed to instantly become a closed space. Their breathing could be heard with startling clarity, and because of this, the girl's somewhat hurried and bewildered gasps were particularly noticeable.

"The weather has turned cold today, take care to stay warm."

The climate had already entered autumn, Kitagawa Ryo said. His head must have been leaning to the right; Ichinose Honami, sitting in the back seat, couldn't see his expression, so all that was conveyed was a concern as warm as lukewarm syrup.

"Mm."

Ichinose Honami only responded softly. She cast her gaze out the window, knowing where they were headed.

"Hotaru lived for nine years. For a cat, that's already quite remarkable."

After a moment of silence, the one who spoke first was actually Ichinose Honami.

"Mm."

This time it was Kitagawa Ryo's turn to respond softly. His tone was as light as a wisp of smoke, as if it would drift away the next moment.

"Where are you planning to bury it?"

"That was your cat."

"That was a cat we raised together."

"I gave it to you."

After a short and hurried conversation, Kitagawa Ryo clicked his tongue heavily.

The car soon pulled to a stop in an abandoned park, and Kitagawa Ryo and Ichinose Honami stepped out, a cardboard box held in his arms.

The withered plants were as desolate as the area itself, and the thick layer of fallen leaves crunched beneath their feet; Kitagawa Ryo felt as if he weren't stepping on leaves, but on layers of shattered glass, for the sound that reached his ears was both cold and brittle.

It was also sharp enough to be unbearable.

"We used to come here all the time when we were little."

Ichinose Honami gazed at the sycamore tree that still stood, two shovels already placed beneath it.

"Hotaru loved to try and catch birds there, though it never managed to catch any."

Kitagawa Ryo placed the cardboard box on the ground and crouched there in silence for a long while before answering.

The autumn lawn had begun to turn yellow, and unkempt weeds grew wildly; Kitagawa Ryo knelt halfway and began to dig a hole with a shovel, while brittle sycamore leaves drifted down, swaying and spinning in the wind before landing on the boy's head and rolling onto his shoulder.

Ichinose Honami stepped forward to brush the fallen leaves from Kitagawa Ryo's shoulder; she seemed to want to say something or do something, perhaps pat the back of the person in front of her, give him a hug, or offer a few words of comfort.

But in the end, she chose to pick up the other shovel and dig the hole with him.

The white cat named Hotaru would never move again; it was placed quietly into the small pit, looking pure and serene. Kitagawa Ryo tilted his head back, his pupils appearing as if they had just been filtered, capturing the entire blue sky and reflecting a dazzling azure.

"I still remember when Hotaru was first found, it was only this big, and it never grew at all."

Kitagawa Ryo began to fill in the hole, watching the grayish-yellow soil slowly submerge the white body, like watching an apple undergo an ugly oxidation.

"It was pouring rain back then, wasn't it? You came to my door soaking wet, holding it in your arms."

Ichinose Honami's movements were even faster than Kitagawa Ryo's; she subconsciously believed that if this were over sooner, Kitagawa Ryo might feel a little better.

"Say a few final words."

Neither of them was slow, and soon Kitagawa Ryo shoveled the last mound of dirt, leaving a small dune on the patch of grass.

Immediately after, like a child who had yet to grow up, he threw the shovel aside in a fit of pique and crouched there with his arms wrapped around his knees.