"So it's not my fault that Rudolf's acting weird, okay?!"
Eternal Meteor's tone took a few sharp detours as she complained. In her mind, she'd been behaving perfectly lately.
Her grades were excellent (a blatant lie), she was eating and taking her meds properly, and she'd even been actively trying to get along with her classmates.
What more did anyone want from her?
"Hmph."
X let out a single dismissive sound in response—and then went silent.
"Hmph my ass. Get lost."
Eternal Meteor finally finished using the bathroom. She stood up, shuffled to the sink, and only then remembered—
She'd forgotten her crutches.
She threw a guilty glance at the door. It was shut tight.
Good.
This kind of "wasting other people's sympathy" behavior made what little conscience she had sting a bit.
Dragging herself toward the door with a limp, she opened it—
—and got scooped up instantly.
"President, I can walk on my own."
Eternal Meteor was placed onto the bed, utterly speechless. At this point she felt like she'd been categorized as "incapable of basic self-care."
"The doctor said your leg shouldn't touch the ground for a while," Rudolf said, forcing her tone to stay even. "The strain is pretty serious."
Only Rudolf knew the truth: the real reason wasn't just muscle strain. It was the hairline fractures—fractures caused by her own negligence.
Fractures that never should have happened.
And she knew she'd been acting strange lately… but she couldn't stop.
Especially after seeing Eternal Meteor collapse in her own blood.
The pain, guilt, fear, anxiety—everything tangled together into a net that wrapped around her tighter and tighter, dragging her down into a bottomless abyss labeled BAD END.
At night, she kept waking up in a cold panic, a hand pressed hard over her chest as she fought for breath—her mind filled with endless variations of Eternal Meteor's worst possible endings.
Only after frantically scanning the room, confirming it had all been a nightmare, and seeing Eternal Meteor still safe in bed… could she calm her heart down again.
Just when she'd started to think things were improving—when she'd finally dared to relax—
Reality had struck her like a hammer.
She hadn't noticed a recovery.
She'd simply failed to notice the damage.
Now, ever since the doctor's words on the train, Rudolf watched Eternal Meteor like a hawk, alert to the slightest discomfort. And earlier, if she hadn't been worried about violating her privacy—about hurting her—she genuinely wouldn't have let her out of her sight at all.
She couldn't afford another "I didn't notice" mistake.
Not ever again.
"By the way, President… shouldn't you be working?" Eternal Meteor asked, trying to endure this suffocating gentleness as little as possible. "Don't do that thing again where you sort paperwork until midnight."
She didn't know what Rudolf was thinking—she just wanted to get her out of the room.
Being cared for like she was made of glass was miserable, especially when she wasn't actually disabled.
"…Mm. Then, Meteor," Rudolf said, and her voice softened. "Do you want to come with me?"
Don't look at me like that.
Eternal Meteor could see it clearly—the naked expectation in Rudolf's eyes.
She turned her head slightly, ready to refuse—
—until Rudolf deployed the next sentence like a finisher move.
"There's a game console under the TV in the student council room. Mr. C.B. bought it recently, I think. He's been obsessed with fighting games… but he only ever plays against the CPU. He's been needing a human opponent."
Eternal Meteor froze for half a beat.
Then—
"I'M IN!"
Rudolf's smile curved into a quiet crescent.
It wasn't that Eternal Meteor couldn't afford a console. Her little stash of money could buy ten of them without blinking.
But everyone knew the best accessory for any game system was simple:
A friend to play with.
Playing with Tokai Teio made her nervous—she was always worried her cheap tricks would make Teio cry.
But now?
A willing opponent was basically walking into the arena on their own.
How could she possibly let that go?
And more importantly—if they went to the student council room and there were other people around, Rudolf couldn't keep treating her like a fragile artifact, right?
That would be way too easy to misunderstand.
Eternal Meteor grinned to herself inside her head, already plotting exactly how she was going to torment her future opponent.
This was going to be fun.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter108)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter144)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 99
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 95
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 99
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 92
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 47
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 44
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 43
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 26
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