I have a life simulator.

"Want to see fireflies?"

Kitagawa Ryo said this to Sakayanagi Arisu, taking his phone out of his pocket and waving it gently at her.

"it is good."

Sakayanagi Arisu blinked her deep purple pupils; the child's eyes were round like a cat's.

So the two of them squatted there together and watched the video sent from Kitagawa Ryo's house. It was something they could have done sitting indoors, but they only realized it after their legs went numb.

I'll have a sweet dream tonight.

Kitagawa Ryo turned off his phone and made this confident declaration.

What's so good about sweet dreams?

Sakayanagi Yusu whispered.

"Am I going to have nightmares?"

"You'll wake up from a nightmare."

Sakayanagi Arisu said:

"It's better than having a beautiful dream about escaping a nightmare, only to wake up in the morning."

"This is the first time I've heard this claim."

Kitagawa Ryo shook his head and said:

"In that case, those fairies who send sweet dreams to good children are the bad guys."

Sakayanagi Arisu lowered her head:

"That was my father comforting me when I had nightmares, Liang, don't worry about it too much."

"After all, no one would wish someone nightmares."

Kitagawa Ryo said softly.

Is dreaming about a deceased person a nightmare or a good dream?

"It depends on whether that's the person you want to see."

"The people you want to see are always the ones you can't dream about."

"That's because you don't dare to think about him too much, so you don't dream about him."

"why?"

"Because when you sleep, it's a beautiful dream, but when you wake up, it's a nightmare that makes you want to cry."

Sakayanagi Arisu seemed satisfied with Kitagawa Ryo's answer, and she turned around and smiled:

"Then I wish Liang a nightmare tonight."

"A good boy like me will have a fairy lady who lets me only have sweet dreams."

Sakayanagi Arisu smiled again, her eyebrows curving like a crescent moon appearing and disappearing in the sky:

"A child who would say something like that is not a good child."

-------------------------------------

"The kid next door?"

The father paused for a moment, then smiled:

"It seems that Arisu has indeed made friends."

"He is the child of a good friend of mine. His fate is rather bizarre, like something out of a novel. For various reasons, he was abandoned at birth and was only recently found and returned home."

"But it's a pity."

Sakayanagi Arisu understood her father's meaning. After all, the other party was suffering from a disease for which there was still no reliable cure. Compared to this terminal illness, also known as ALS, her own congenital heart disease seemed insignificant.

Kitagawa Ryo seems to be doing well now, partly because of the excellent medical facilities, and partly because the symptoms are only in their early stages, with only his right hand currently affected.

Just like the name of the illness, as the symptoms worsen, Kitagawa Ryoki is gradually "frozen," from his hands to his body, from the outside to the inside, until finally.

Sakayanagi Arisu searched for this condition and found a picture of a man with his head tilted to the side, drooling. He had lost almost all control over his body and could not even swallow or smile normally.

"For you."

The father seemed to want to skip the topic, and he took out an elegant walking stick and a white sun hat from the bag he had brought.

“I heard that Arisu has been spending more time outdoors lately, so this should come in handy.”

A walking stick can support the body, and a hat can block out the sun; they are both highly practical gifts.

And it's also very beautiful.

However, when Sakayanagi Arisu went to see Kitagawa Ryo the next day with her cane, Kitagawa Ryo didn't seem to like it.

"Walk on three legs."

Kitagawa Ryo glanced at it and commented as follows.

"Like an old lady."

As a result, Sakayanagi Arisu chased Kitagawa Ryo with a cane for a full twenty minutes.

Perhaps this can be considered a form of rehabilitation training.

perhaps.

Chapter Seventy: I'll cut off your head!

It rained all day today. Unlike the usual summer showers, the rain poured down for almost eight hours before finally stopping near dusk.

The sky was gloomy when it rained, and the twilight after the rain stopped was also dark. The light of the sky and the shadows of the clouds, along with the entire day, seemed to be swallowed by a black hole, rapidly falling into the depths of darkness. Kitagawa Ryo looked out through the closed window, and the shadows of the nearby trees began to blur. In the eerie silence, there was the occasional sound of water droplets sliding down.

He suddenly remembered that Sakura Airi used to be afraid of the curtains being blown by the wind on such dark nights, but from this angle, the shadows of the trees were more terrifying. With their branches and leaves knocked off by the rain, they looked like hard skeletons, standing there straight and menacing.

About two hours later, the moon appeared through the thick clouds, and Kitagawa Ryo opened the window to let the moonlight in.

A gentle knock came into the room along with the moonlight.

It’s Arisu Sakayanagi.

Even for good kids, eight o'clock is too early to go to bed. In addition, both of them had already slept soundly for several hours in their respective hospital rooms during the day, so they were surprisingly energetic at night.

“I had imagined this scenario in books before.”

Kitagawa Ryo brought Sakayanagi Arisu some warm milk. There were no dangerous items like hot water bottles in their hospital room, so they couldn't make tea or coffee, and cold drinks were out of the question. The only things they could offer were warm water or milk.

Does "cool" refer to sleeping in the rain?

Sakayanagi Arisu took the milk, but instead of drinking it, she asked a question first.

Because of the rain, her rehabilitation training today was temporarily canceled. She had originally planned to talk to Kitagawa Ryo, but unexpectedly, he insisted that now was the perfect time to sleep and wouldn't even open the door for her.

"Because I've imagined for a long time that I would sleep soundly on a rainy afternoon, not knowing what time it would be when I woke up, and then I wouldn't need to turn on the lights. I would just lean against the bed, listen to the rain outside, and think about all sorts of random things. Just thinking about it makes me feel like it's a very enjoyable thing."

Kitagawa Ryo then added:

"I heard this from another elementary school student when I was hospitalized before. He had bone cancer, and the first thing he said on his first night in the hospital was, 'I don't need to go to school anymore!'"

"Therefore, being able to sleep without worries is a happy thing in itself."

"The price is that I really can't sleep now."

Kitagawa Ryo scratched his head. His ward was much quieter than Sakayanagi Arisu's, and there were no bookshelves or desks as big. In fact, in Sakayanagi Arisu's memory, since Kitagawa moved in, no one who looked like his parents had ever come to visit.

Even though Arisu Sakayanagi's own father had reduced the frequency of his visits due to his busy work schedule, he still came three times that week.

"Actually, I sometimes feel sorry for that child."

When my father came yesterday, Sakayanagi Arisu couldn't help but bring up the topic of Kitagawa Ryo again, and my father nodded with a complicated expression.

"why?"

"After all, if he hadn't gotten sick, his future would have been infinitely brighter."

“No family would choose a child destined to die young as their heir. The fact that he is currently receiving the best medical care is already compensation from his parents for their past abandonment. It is unrealistic to expect them to truly treat this child as their own and raise him with care.”

"It may sound a bit cruel, but no one would put all their money into a stock that is expected to hit the daily limit down and be delisted."

Sakayanagi Arisu couldn't quite grasp the deeper meaning; she simply disliked this far-fetched story and then tightly held her father's broad hand.

As if in response, Arisu Sakayanagi's father also held his daughter's small hand in his palm.

A father's love for his daughter, a mother's love for her daughter, and a father's love for his mother.

Enveloped in three acts of love, Sakayanagi Arisu looked across the wall to the other side. Compared to herself, Kitagawa Ryo had never received any love from his parents.

What embarrassed Sakayanagi Arisu was that she immediately felt a faint sense of superiority, like children comparing themselves to each other. She had heard before that not only parents would openly or secretly compare their children's merits, but children would also freely display their parents' love, perhaps with a new piece of clothing, a new pair of sneakers, or a chance to go on a trip.

This should have been a normal feeling, but Sakayanagi Arisu still felt a little embarrassed and annoyed. She didn't think her competitive spirit should be satisfied in this way.

Moreover, this shouldn't even be something to talk about in the first place.

Being able to openly express one's feelings to family is a remarkable ability in itself, because most of the elite students of her age that Sakayanagi Arisu has observed over the years have not been able to learn it. She feels that these people probably will never have time to learn it in the future, as if expressing feelings is an extremely shameful thing for them, even when facing their closest family members.

Her father taught Arisu Sakayanagi how to love, but so far, apart from her father, she has not found anyone worthy of her love.

When he heard his seven-year-old daughter solemnly say the word "love," Chairman Sakayanagi couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed. However, he still seriously told his daughter some stories from back then.

At the end of the story, the father said this to his daughter:

"Love is inherently difficult because it requires the opening of each other's hearts and souls, which can even be described as dangerous."

"Others may be your hell, where there is armor formed from the scars of the soul, swords forged from defensive gazes, labyrinths of language, and traps hidden behind smiles. Behind all that, of course, there is still a lonely heart trembling, and an undying thirst for communication."

Even though his mother had passed away several years ago, his still relatively young father had no intention of remarrying. In terms of status, he was already the chairman of the board of directors of Tokyo Advanced Educational High School and had many connections with other important figures in the political and business world.

Last night, Sakayanagi Arisu had a dream that left her feeling refreshed upon waking, but she couldn't remember what she dreamt about.

The two children who couldn't sleep didn't choose Gomoku or chess because Arisu Sakayanagi said she wanted to practice first and be confident before challenging them. So, their entertainment for the evening turned into a game of cards, which was like a game of chance.

"I'll cut off your head!"

As Kitagawa Ryo elegantly played his last Queen of Hearts, it marked Sakayanagi Arisu's third consecutive loss in the poker game.

However, the advantage of a game of chance is that people can always attribute everything to the elusive nature of luck, just like gamblers always feel that they can turn the tables in the next round. Sakayanagi Arisu obviously didn't care about this result. She began to gather the scattered playing cards on the table and started to shuffle the cards with difficulty.

The main problem was that the playing cards were too big for the two seven-year-olds to hold, and Kitagawa Ryo's right hand was also not very convenient, so Sakayanagi Arisu did the shuffling of the cards each round.

After drawing cards, Sakayanagi Arisu would systematically categorize them, arranging them in front of her like a military formation. Kitagawa Ryo could tell which pile contained single cards and which contained pairs with just a glance, making it much easier for him to play his cards.

However, for Kitagawa Ryo, who possesses the talent of "photographic memory", he only needs to glance at the cards in his hand to easily memorize them all. He simply stacks the cards he draws into a single pile, and his card-playing speed is three points faster than Sakayanagi Arisu.

After three rounds, Sakayanagi Arisu finally noticed this tactical mistake. She changed the way she drew cards and won a round as expected.

"I'll cut off your head!"

Whether intentionally or not, Arisu Sakayanagi also played the Queen of Hearts as her last card.

She and Kitagawa Ryo were just shouting the classic line from Alice in Wonderland, spoken by the Queen of Hearts. This grumpy queen would yell at her guards to cut off the head of anyone who didn't like her.

However, since it's a fairy tale, the Queen of Hearts never actually cut off a single person's head until the end of the story, and the Cheshire Cat, the only one who was brought to the execution platform, easily escaped.

"Cats are truly amazing animals."

Kitagawa Ryo sighed unconsciously, and Sakayanagi Arisu quickly understood what he meant and said:

"The Cheshire Cat in the story has long claws and sharp teeth. If a cat like that smiled at you, it would be like something out of a horror movie."

"I think Alice should learn to add a filter to fairy tales."

"But fairy tales don't really have any filters, do they?"

Sakayanagi Arisu lazily toyed with the Q of Hearts in her hand and said:

"The original character was a heroine like Judith, but in the story she became the Furious Queen who only knew how to behead people, and then in Disney movies she became a villain with a big head."

"Just to make a comparison, they even had to create a character in the movie who doesn't exist in the original story, the White Queen."

At this point, Sakayanagi Arisu shrugged, looking rather bored:

"However, it does provide interesting material for various dark fairy tales."

"Stop, stop, stop, stop!"

Kitagawa Ryo quickly reached out his left hand, took the Queen of Hearts, and put it into the deck:

"I don't want to hear dark fairy tales."