Chapter 66: The Cat, The Fall, and The Clinic

Life settles into a new, bizarre rhythm. Haruka, having been publicly called out, abandons her clumsy stalking. But her crush does not simply evaporate. Instead, it festers, manifesting as a kind of high-tension avoidance. If we are in the same hallway, she will now pointedly ignore me, lifting her chin and walking past with an air of profound indifference that is so over-the-top it is actually more obvious than her stalking was.

Rina, for her part, is a smug, victorious queen, enjoying the spoils of her victory. It is in this strange, new landscape that the 'Cat Incident' occurs.

I am walking home with Rina one afternoon, taking a shortcut through a small, quiet park. As we round a corner, we see a strange sight. Haruka Ito is standing at the base of a large tree, staring up into its branches. She is alone, her usual friends nowhere in sight.

"What is she doing now?" Rina mutters, her good mood instantly souring at the sight of her rival.

We slow our pace, watching from a distance. Up in the tree, a small, terrified kitten is mewing pitifully, clearly stuck on a high branch.

Haruka calls up to it, her voice surprisingly soft. "Here, kitty. It is okay. Come on down."

The kitten just cries louder. Haruka looks around. The park is empty. With a sigh of frustration and a determined look on her face, she kicks off her expensive-looking loafers, hitches up her school uniform skirt, and begins to climb the tree.

Rina and I just stop and stare, completely dumbfounded.

"Is she seriously climbing a tree?" I whisper. "In a skirt?"

"This is the weirdest day of my life," Rina whispers back.

Haruka is surprisingly athletic. She makes her way up the tree with a wiry, determined grace. She gets to the branch where the kitten is, and she slowly, carefully, shimmies out onto it. She reaches for the kitten.

And then, a branch under her foot snaps with a loud crack.

She lets out a surprised yelp, loses her balance, and comes crashing down, landing in a heap of tangled limbs and undignified flailing in the soft grass below with a heavy thud. The kitten, startled by the noise, promptly scrambles down the tree on its own and runs off.

Haruka does not get up. She just lies there, groaning.

My first instinct is to laugh. It is a perfect, karmic, slapstick moment. But Rina does not laugh. Her expression is one of shock, followed by something else, something I do not expect: concern.

"Ito-san!" she calls out, rushing forward. I follow, my amusement giving way to a grudging sense of responsibility.

We reach her. She is trying to sit up, her face pale and twisted in pain. "I am fine," she grits out through clenched teeth, but when she tries to put weight on her right foot, she lets out a sharp cry of pain. Her ankle is already starting to swell.

"You are not fine," Rina says, her voice firm. "You are an idiot. You cannot climb trees in loafers." She kneels, her expression surprisingly gentle as she inspects the injury. "It looks like a sprain. A bad one. Onii-chan, help me get her up."

Together, we manage to get a protesting, prideful Haruka to her feet, her arm slung over my shoulder. We half-carry, half-drag her out of the park and to the small, local clinic down the street.

An hour later, Haruka is sitting on an examination bed, her ankle expertly wrapped and elevated. The doctor has confirmed it is a bad sprain and has ordered her to stay off it for at least a week.

Rina stands by the door, her arms crossed. "You know," she says, breaking the awkward silence. "For a cold-hearted viper, that was a surprisingly brave and kind thing to do. Trying to save that cat."

Haruka just looks away, a faint, angry blush on her cheeks. "I do not know what you are talking about," she mutters. "I hate cats. I was just… trying to get it out of the tree because its stupid meowing was annoying me." It is the most tsundere thing I have ever heard in my life.

Before Rina can retort, the door to the room opens, and Kenji, Miki, and Hana burst in, their faces full of panic. Rina had texted them.

"Hime-Hime-sama!" Kenji cries, rushing to her bedside. "Are you alright?! I heard you were wounded in a noble act of heroism! Does your ankle hurt as much as my heart hurts from your constant rejection?!"

Haruka just gives him a look of pure, unadulterated loathing.

I just sigh. Even in a moment of crisis, our lives are a circus. But as I look at Rina, who is now arguing with Haruka about the proper way to elevate a sprained ankle, a strange thought occurs to me. This bizarre, chaotic, and deeply dysfunctional group of people… they are starting to feel less like a collection of rivals and more like a very, very weird family.