I really don't want to be reborn.

People seem to never mind showing their worst side to those they are truly close to, and Kyosuke Kousaka was no exception.

Black Cat blushed, feeling both ashamed and angry. She forced herself to suppress her anger as she walked into the school: "You—I'm starting to hate you, brother!"

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Two Cat Party Members

"Next, we will recognize those who achieved excellent results in the national mock exam held last month!"

"Kasumigaoka Utaha...please come up to the stage."

"..."

"..."

The entire school stared strangely at the beautiful girl with long, straight black hair sitting in the senior class, tilting her head and dozing off.

They then looked at the boy she was leaning on, as if by unspoken agreement.

"Kousaka! Hey, Kousaka, wake her up quickly..."

"Shh-"

"Shut up! The principal is looking over here!"

The principal was bald before he was old, and when he got old he was completely bald. His knowledge was so abundant that it pushed his hair down. At this moment, he was looking at them with resentment.

You don't even want your scholarship anymore, you bastard!!!

Kyosuke Kosaka then had no choice but to shake his girlfriend, who was sound asleep with her head on his shoulder, awake: "Wake up, Editor Machida is calling. She said she brought a knife this time."

"Well!"

Upon hearing this name, Kasumigaoka Utaha, who had recently been drifting along, seemed to be jolted awake as if from a nightmare, staring blankly at him: "That devil, that she-devil... is he here again to rush me for the manuscript? And with a knife?"

It seems that Ms. Xia Shizi and her editor have a very good relationship.

Kyosuke pointed upwards: "We asked you, the top scorer in the national mock exam, to go up and receive the award, and you fell asleep during the entrance ceremony. What are the new students going to think of you?"

She lazily stood up and walked onto the stage.

His reluctant demeanor suggested he was heading towards the guillotine rather than the podium, and he yawned as he walked.

The black cat silently watched that figure from behind, a seemingly weak yet invincible figure, and felt a slight chill in its heart—only by coming to this school could it understand just how strong Kasumigaoka Utaha really was.

"She does whatever she wants, sleeps in class all the time, and never does her homework, but her grades are so good that even the teachers can't do anything about her—but this senior is really beautiful!"

Hearing the red-haired girl sitting next to him say this, the black cat slowly exhaled, thinking to himself that Kasumigaoka Utaha was still a bestselling young female author.

"You must receive love letters every day, right?"

"But I heard from the second-year students that this senior seems to have a boyfriend—oh, isn't that the one sitting next to her?"

The newly enrolled girls whispered among themselves, their eyes fixed on the gentle and refined young man. He seemed to sense their presence, slowly turned around, and smiled at them.

"Ugh! I fell in love on my very first day of high school..."

As one of the girls said this, a boy behind her stared at Kyosuke Kousaka, gazing at him dreamily, and said, "I'm... in love too."

Ok……

Um? ?

Black Cat blushed; she knew that Kosaka, that bastard, was smiling at her.

That smile was still full of false warmth and real malice. The smile lingered on the face, but the facial muscles had relaxed, leaving only the lingering echo of loud laughter in the air.

The malice was all too obvious!

Seeing her so gloomy and out of place among her classmates who were chatting and laughing, you must be very happy, right? You're laughing at me, aren't you, Kyosuke Kousaka!

Hearing these noisy sounds, her frustration and anger finally made her speak, and she hissed in a low voice: "A bunch of sows in heat!"

No one heard her say that except for the red-haired girl next to her.

The girl was cute, and her glasses added to her intellectual air. Hearing the black cat's angry rebuke, she also whispered in defense, "I'm not a sow..."

The black cat instinctively replied, "Hard to say."

"..."

"No, no, that's not what I meant—never mind, I won't explain."

The red-haired girl asked thoughtfully, "Do you know Kousaka-senpai? He was actually looking at you just now, right?"

"Yes, I know his sister."

Although they were talking about the boy, the little black cat's tone made it sound like they were talking about homosexuality—as if the man who had traveled a long way to meet her wasn't interested in the girl herself, but rather in how powerful her father was.

Does his sister also attend this school?

"Still in junior high school."

"Oh……"

After a long silence, the black cat seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

Heaven help her, even though it was only a few minutes of talking to a stranger, she found those few minutes more unbearable than watching Meruru.

Meruru, though embarrassed, kept it to herself and slowly savored it, while the tension of talking to strangers made her so nervous that she squinted and her eyes darted around like a kite, racking her brains to avoid making a fool of herself.

Of course, it is more tiring to have a physical relationship with Meruru's mother or grandmother than to mentally restrain oneself from such a relationship.

“...Um, my name is Akagi, Akagi Sena.”

Akagi Kohei's younger sister extended a friend invitation to the helpless black cat. The black cat looked at her in surprise and lowered its head: "I...I...my name is, um, my name is Black..."

"black?"

"No, it's the fifth watch—"

It's Gokou Ruri!

"Liuli's" voice was like a turtle cautiously peeking out of its shell, retreating as soon as it sensed something was wrong, only to be met with the tide.

"Clap clap clap..."

He was met with a tidal wave of applause as he introduced himself.

The speech given by the student council president at the entrance ceremony was written by some unknown mastermind. It was like urine left overnight; although the substance itself didn't smell very good, it smelled thick and pungent, and it continued to flow freely.

Whoosh!

…………

The second day of the new semester.

The school bell rang, and the classroom was filled with noise.

"Shall we go back?"

Kyosuke Kosaka invited his girlfriend to go back: "If it's about the Literature Department recruiting, just make up some excuse."

The head of the Literature Club smiled and said, "Oh, is it because your boyfriend doesn't want the new member to bother him?"

"Huh? What do I care about?"

"If new members join, you won't be able to do anything lewd to me in the clubroom anymore."

"..."

"When the mood strikes, you still have your hands, don't you?"

He spoke with ill intent: "Are you referring to my hand, or your hand?"

The girl stomped her foot on the classroom floor: "Oh? If I'm around, I usually use my feet—"

The other people in the classroom, unable to bear the blatant flirting between the two, all left.

"Sigh, it's not exciting at all..."

"Huh? It's only been a short time since I lost my virginity? Aren't you already interested in my feet?"

Kyosuke Kosaka was also a little overwhelmed: "What I mean by freshness is that it's still the same faces. I remember we had to change classes every time we went up a grade, right?"

"That's true for you, since you know almost everyone in this age group, and you're known for being good at making friends."

"I'm just an ordinary, fulfilled person."

Unlike pickled mustard greens.

When Ogiso Setsuna hears Yanagihara Tomo say that he's ordinary or average, she'll get furious regardless of the occasion, but Kasumigaoka Utaha won't.

She understands very well how extraordinary the ordinary can be.

There is unspoken responsibility and fulfillment in the ordinary; that is an ordinary life, not a mediocre one.

The hardest part of living is dealing with mediocrity—and both she and Kyosuke Kousaka did it very well.

Kasumigaoka Utaha pulled his hand and walked out of the classroom: "Come on, I think I know why you're not going to the clubroom. You want to see your little black cat, right?"

“That’s not mine… I don’t have that kind of relationship with her.”

"Ah."

That "hmm" was filled with trust and noncommittal acceptance.

After the two went down the stairs, they headed towards the first-grade classroom.

"that……"

After walking for a while, Kasumigaoka Utaha suddenly asked a rather sensitive question.

Have you been in contact with Kirino recently?

"I could hardly get through on the phone, but I did receive a few emails saying she was fine. If it weren't for the fact that I had the contact information for her coach in the US, I would have thought my silly daughter had been kidnapped in a foreign country."

Kasumigaoka Utaha's expression froze slightly: "I didn't know you had connections in America too."

"It's nothing, just something I acquired through a transaction. Has she contacted you?"

"Ah...how is that possible?"

This is only natural.

She barely contacted Saori and Kuroneko, so how could she possibly contact Kasumigaoka Utaha, whom she dislikes the most?