Chapter 237: A Very Long Dream

Advanced Nurturing High School, dormitory building, Ichinose Honami's room.

"Sumimasen! Sumimasen! Sumimasen!"

The first to react was Kanzaki Ryuji. He bent his body into a ninety-degree angle, hands pressed tight against the seams of his trousers, desperately bowing in apology to the dorm mother.

As expected of a scion of a financial conglomerate, his apologizing routine was so practiced that the dorm mother, her face showing bewilderment, didn't know what to say.

"Aaah!"

A sharp scream broke the brief silence in the room. Ichinose's close friend, Amikura Mako, was grabbing Fuyuji Mikage's shoulders, shaking him for dear life. The force was so great that even the tie of his blazer uniform had been pulled loose.

"Where's Honami-chan? Where did she go? You, you, tell me right now!"

"I-Ichinose, uh... about that..." Fuyuji, caught red-handed, scratched his cheek awkwardly and turned his head away, gazing out past the balcony. "Probably... maybe..."

At this point, to keep the Class B group from treating him as a spy who had secretly infiltrated the dormitory to steal another class's secrets, there was no choice but to call upon the great angel Ichinose from the Western Paradise to fish him out.

However, before he could say it.

Beside him, Kobashi Yume, who had been waiting anxiously along with the others, seemed to realize something. Her eyes went wide, and she clapped a hand over her mouth, stepping back two paces in disbelief.

"Why... do you have the room card to Honami-chan's room? Don't tell me... you did something to Honami-chan..."

"How could that be? Your imagination is way too wild. This is a school!"

Fuyuji blurted out with a face full of black lines, forcibly steering the scene back from the criminal investigation drama it was about to become.

"Then where did she actually go?" Amikura tightened her grip. "Tell me!"

"She's sick. She's resting in my room." Fuyuji said irritably. "Because of today's rumors, she wanted some quiet, and she didn't want you all to worry."

Honestly. Not just the Horikita siblings, even Class B had this problem. They all clearly meant well for each other, yet in the end they became each other's sources of pressure.

Just then.

Sniffle...

Sniffle...

Sniffle...

A series of nose-sniffling sounds suddenly rose in the living room. Fuyuji instinctively turned his head.

He saw Shiranami Chihiro silently walk over to the insulated lunchbox she had brought earlier. Her big eyes stared blankly at the neatly arranged containers. Her body slid down noiselessly, and she sat on the floor in a W-sitting pose.

Her hands tremblingly lifted the partially drunk miso soup. Her mouth puckered, tears pooled in her eyes, as if they would spill over the very next second.

"I clearly... I clearly... worked so hard on it for so long..." A voice tinged with sobs spilled from her mouth.

Seeing this, Fuyuji felt somewhat awkward too.

"Um... how about this, I'll compensate you with a portion in a couple of days," he tentatively asked. "My personal cook is pretty good. She's proficient in all kinds of cuisine!"

"I don't want... compensation..." A murmured whisper came from Shiranami's mouth.

"What?"

"You compensate me!"

Her voice rose a notch. She jerked her head up, biting her lower lip, like a little tabby cat baring its claws, glaring at him with a fierce yet adorable look.

"I want this exact portion! This portion that was eaten, you compensate me with it!"

"Even if you say that, there's no way I can throw it back up for you."

"I don't care, you compensate me!" Shiranami chose to be unreasonable, throwing a tantrum and rolling about. "You compensate me! You compensate me! You compensate me!"

Fuyuji: "..."

She looked like such a quiet girl, meek and timid in front of Ichinose. How had she become so difficult to deal with now?

Back then, you even slipped a love letter into my shoe locker. I specifically helped you keep that secret. Can't I drink two mouthfuls of your soup as compensation?

"Then... how about... two portions?"

"I don't want that (sniffle), I want this exact portion!"

"Ichinose will make it, you know."

The sniffling stopped instantly. Shiranami raised her face, staring at him suspiciously.

"Really?"

"Really!"

"Ichinose will?" Shiranami asked again, uncertain.

"As long as I ask her, she should agree."

Their gazes collided unexpectedly. The next second, the deal was silently struck.

Fuyuji's social maneuvering!

...

About ten minutes later, the door to Ichinose's room closed once more.

"Truly, sumimasen!"

Led by Kanzaki, with Amikura, Kobashi, and Shiranami following close behind, the row of them once again stood ramrod straight in the corridor, bowing deeply to the dorm mother in perfect unison, their angles precise, their sincerity abundant.

"Thank goodness it was just a false alarm and a misunderstanding." The dorm mother's tense shoulders finally relaxed. She let out a long breath and waved a hand, her tone considerably gentler. "Although it was indeed a bit sensitive, with things like this, better safe than sorry. It's not entirely your fault either. Just be more careful next time."

"Arigatou!" xN

The group once again spoke in unison, watching the dorm mother step into the elevator and leave.

Ding!

With a crisp sound, the elevator doors closed.

Watching the red digital numbers above begin to change continuously, all of them breathed a collective sigh of relief.

It was over...

"Alright," Kanzaki straightened his posture, crossed his arms, and glanced at Fuyuji, who was still carrying the bag. "Now can you take us to see Ichinose?"

"Of course."

Fuyuji pressed the button for the other elevator with a press.

"Just so we're clear in advance, Ichinose really is sick. To avoid her condition worsening tomorrow, making her unable to attend class and causing the rumors to intensify, it's best not to disturb her too much. Just take a look and leave."

"I understand." Amikura and Kobashi nodded simultaneously.

"Hmph!"

Shiranami let out a cold snort, but she didn't argue either. She simply hugged her insulated lunchbox silently to her chest.

Although she had long known that Ichinose was very close with this Class A boy, she hadn't expected it to go this far. And since Ichinose herself had agreed to it, they could only pinch their noses and accept it.

Ding!

The elevator doors opened. The five of them filed in, and the doors closed again.

In the enclosed space, everyone stood quietly in place. No one spoke.

Fuyuji looked up at the display. Shiranami looked down, rubbing the pull ring of her lunchbox. Amikura and Kobashi exchanged a glance, tacitly shrinking together into the farthest corner of the elevator. Kanzaki observed Fuyuji's expression without revealing anything.

For a moment, the entire elevator fell into a strange silence.

"Kanzaki."

Finally, Fuyuji was the first to break the silence in the elevator, speaking calmly.

"What is it?" Kanzaki kept his usual poker face.

"What do you think about this incident? Regarding Ichinose."

The question seemed to stump Kanzaki for a moment. After a few seconds of silence, he sighed.

"Maybe... Ichinose isn't as perfect as we imagined. Perhaps we've been relying on Ichinose too much..."

"Yes." Fuyuji adjusted the tie that Amikura had messed up earlier, facing the elevator doors, and said casually, "Ichinose is your class's strength, and also your weakness."

In Fuyuji's view, for first-year Class B, the compatibility between Ichinose and the other Class B students was actually very high.

Ichinose advocated fair and open competition, and was happy to extend a helping hand to any classmate in need. And coincidentally, whether due to the selection mechanism or some other reason, this year's Class B students had an overall temperament that was remarkably gentle. They were almost all good students, to the point where they could even be described as kindhearted.

The combination of these two factors had given birth to the current somewhat deformed Class B structure.

It resulted in this year's Class B being unprecedentedly united under Ichinose's nearly unsolvable social affinity and leadership charisma. However, due to the deeply rooted atmosphere of reading the room in Japanese society, Ichinose's authority within Class B had reached an almost dictatorial level.

Anyone who wanted to raise a different opinion or express concern, under this invisible pressure of "Ichinose is always right" and "we mustn't destroy the harmonious atmosphere," would ultimately silently shut their mouths and swallow their objections back down.

Ryuen-chan would cry if he saw this. It was basically your life, my dream!

But the problem was, Ichinose's personality was simply too soft. She couldn't bring herself to be ruthless. In this strength-supremacist, fiercely competitive Advanced Nurturing High School, that was fatal.

"At this rate, your class is going to lose miserably." Fuyuji's voice was very soft. "If I dig out Ichinose, the core."

"You bastard, as I thought..."

Kanzaki gave Fuyuji a deep look.

"That's wrong!" Shiranami mustered her courage and glared fiercely at Fuyuji. "Our Class B will definitely win against your Class A, under Honami-chan's leadership."

"That's right, exactly!"

Amikura and Kobashi raised their delicate fists and chimed in agreement.

"Is that so..." Fuyuji smiled, then his tone instantly became lighter as he turned to face the Class B group. "Just kidding, just kidding. Class B is actually very impressive. I often see Katsuragi worrying himself bald over your class. It's really kowai, you know..."

"..."

The Class B group opened their mouths, their lips quivering a few times.

The problem was, Katsuragi-kun... didn't he already have no hair to begin with?

The numbers on the display stopped jumping. A sense of solid ground beneath their feet returned. The elevator doors opened with a ding, and Fuyuji stepped out.

"Let's go. If Ichinose is asleep later, don't wake her. If she's awake, don't ask her too much about the class or the rumors. She needs some quiet."

The three girls nodded in perfect unison.

"I understand!"

"Later, we'll tiptoe and feel our way forward!"

"Understood!"

Following behind them, Kanzaki's cold poker face twitched.

Why was this guy so proficient at ordering around their Class B students?!

...

'Huh? Where is this?'

Her consciousness seemed to sink to the icy bottom of the water, then slowly float upward. Blurry patches of color gradually condensed into form.

Ichinose Honami turned to look at the scenery around her.

The department store shelves, the stern mother, the little sister crying helplessly, the helpless store clerk, the people around whispering and pointing...

"A girl like this, actually doing something like that..."

"You can know a person's face but not their heart..."

"It's just a hairpin. Is it really worth all this..."

...

So that's how it was. Ichinose smiled helplessly, a flicker of understanding passing through her heart.

'I've come back here again, have I?'

She had thought that after nearly a year, she should have almost completely forgotten this incident. Yet unexpectedly, not only had she not forgotten it, but the various details had actually become clearer and clearer in her mind.

Over the past year, she had dreamed of this scene more times than she could count.

Her little sister, lost and crying, not knowing what to do. Her mother, pale-faced, just out of the hospital. And... herself, prostrating on the ground, helpless, remorseful, trembling.

Everything, everything, played before her eyes like a slideshow.

But...

"Ichinose Honami, this won't do."

She spoke to the self kneeling on the ground, or perhaps to the present self.

Then, she pressed down her skirt, slowly crouched, wrapped her arms around herself, and quietly watched the version of herself whose head was pressed completely against the concrete, expression unreadable. She said softly: "Someone's coming to pick us up. We can't keep them waiting outside forever. So, it's time to go."

As the words fell, the whispering voices beside her, the pedestrians walking by, the mother bowing repeatedly... all froze in place as if a movie had been paused.

At the same time, a voice came to Ichinose's ears from somewhere unknown.

"Shh! Keep your voice down. She's still asleep after all, huh?"

"Honami-chan looks so cute when she's sleeping... She hasn't eaten yet, will she be hungry?"

"It's only past eight. She should wake up later, right? Otherwise she'd have to stay..."

"Dame! Not that, at least..."

"Everyone, I'll leave this to you. I'll wait outside."

...

Crack crack crack.

Several fissures suddenly appeared in the frozen scene around her, shattering like glass.

The pedestrians, the store clerk, the little sister, the mother... everything dissolved into the darkness as the scene shattered.

Her thick, curled eyelashes trembled faintly like butterfly wings. Ichinose Honami slowly opened her eyes. The room light wasn't on. At a glance, it seemed somewhat dim. After a few seconds of blurriness, her vision began to clear.

Several pairs of eyes, watching her with curiosity, came into view. Apparently not expecting her to suddenly wake up, the owners of those eyes instantly became a bit flustered, their gazes drifting shiftily.

"See, I told you we shouldn't have brought you in. The moment you came in, she woke up."

"What do you mean, Fuyuji-kun? You clearly made noise yourself too. How can you blame it all on us?"

"Exactly. This guy is the worst. One look and you can tell he's up to no good. Last time at Keyaki Mall he even threatened me!"

"..."

Her eyelids fluttered rapidly a few times. Ichinose propped herself up, looked at Fuyuji beside her, then at the three girls gathered around her and Kanzaki lingering by the door. A smile bloomed on her fair, rosy cheeks.

"Good evening, Fuyuji-kun. And... everyone from Class B. I think I had a very, very long dream..."

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