Am I being simulated by their love affair?

Page 176

"Sometimes people wear masks just to protect themselves. If they don't face the audience and the camera with the image they portray, they will only get more pressure and trouble."

Yosei Kurusu blinked. "But that's not what Matsueda wanted to say to me, is it?"

"You just said it yourself in the car, you said you would support me, right?"

"Who told me to become someone's fan?" He swallowed the last bite of char siu. "Anyway, I've already warned you, so I can eat this char siu with a clear conscience."

"You can eat as many pine branches as you want!"

The girl looked at Jun Matsueda with a smile. She preferred the moment of eating noodles slowly with him on a secluded street to participating in such sensational entertainment programs to promote herself.

To make such moments more frequent, she has to work even harder—only entertainers standing at the top of Tokyo have the absolute right to speak.

By then, Songzhi will have become her number one fan, with only her in his heart, right?

"Speaking of which, Pine Branch, when will you come of age?"

"What are you doing?" The boy asked, a hint of wariness in his eyes as he ate his noodles.

"I just feel that at times like this, a drink is essential for a perfect moment~"

However, the simple ramen stall did not offer drinks. After finishing their ramen, the two returned the bowls and walked for more than ten minutes back to their apartment, which was lit by a few lights.

"So tired—I want to sleep—" The girl slumped into the sofa.

“I think you’re too full and sleepy.” Jun Matsue took out his phone. He hadn’t even had a chance to look at his phone because Yosuke Kishi had been chatting with him the whole way.

"I want to take a bath~ Matsue, can you go and run the water for me?" Yosei Kurusu groaned on the sofa.

"For the sake of the char siu." Jun Matsue walked into the bathroom, filling the bathtub with water while checking his messages.

The rabbit and cat avatars in the chat list had already started flashing, so he clicked on them to take a look.

Tomatsu asked tactfully, "How did you feel tonight, Matsueda? Was the recording of the show interesting?"

Mochizuki Haruka was much more direct, "Did you go back to your apartment with that guy?"

After replying to the message, the bathtub was almost empty. He returned to the living room and said, "Go take a bath quickly, the water will get cold soon."

Yosei Kurusu hummed a song as she walked into the bathroom. Jun Matsueda took her place and lay down on the sofa. He closed his eyes and went through all of the girl's remarks from the show that evening in his mind.

"As long as they don't edit out of context, there shouldn't be any problems. The topic itself is also quite good, and the production team shouldn't do something so offensive..."

He then searched for reviews of past episodes on his phone and found no particularly serious public opinion storms, so it seems the production team was aware of the situation.

Feeling relieved for now, Jun Matsue decided to go to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and finish the last bit of tea leaves that his manager had given him.

As he waited for the aroma of the tea to infuse into the water, his phone vibrated again; it was a message from Yamami Maki.

"The proposal for the ice cream vending machine has been revised. Would you like to take a look, Pineapple?"

The girl's voice floated in the air along with the aroma of tea, making it impossible for anyone to refuse.

"Then I'll have to trouble you, senior." Jun Matsue walked into the bedroom with a teacup in his hand.

Yosei Kurusu groaned contentedly in the warm water, while the girl reached out and picked up the lit-up cell phone next to the bathtub.

"Yoshi-neechan came to the practice room, why didn't she look for me!" Miyamura Aya sent a message.

"Sorry~ It just so happens that our times are different. I really wanted to see Aya-chan's band too~"

The girl immediately sent a photo of girls carrying musical instruments and walking towards the subway station, looking like they had just finished practicing.

"So youthful!" Yosei Kurusu replied, clicking on the picture to take a closer look.

"Huh?" She counted the photos and found only two girls carrying musical instruments. Including Aya, who took the photo, and Matsue, who was absent, there were four people in total.

In the practice room group photo that Songzhi showed her back then, there seemed to be five people, right?

Chapter 307 An Afternoon of Unsettled Hearts

After taking a bath, I changed into a short-sleeved shirt and stepped out of the bathroom. A faint aroma of tea filled the living room.

But the person who brewed the tea wasn't there. The girl, with her back bent and bare feet on the wooden floor, moved silently to someone's bedroom door.

Jun Matsueda's voice came through, "That's good. I think my senior's idea is perfect..."

Huh? Matsue is on the phone? Kurusu Yosei raised an eyebrow. She pressed her ear against the door but didn't hear any girl's voice.

Maybe she was wearing headphones... The girl listened furtively at the door for a while longer before gently knocking on the door, taking two steps outside, and pretending to have just been standing at the door.

Two seconds later, the bedroom door opened, and the boy walked out of the room. "Finished soaking?"

"Songzhi can go wash now~" The girl nodded obediently, then looked curiously into the bedroom. "Was Songzhi on the phone just now?"

Jun Matsueda nodded and took out a change of clothes from his room. "A senior member of the student council wants to see me about something."

"I see..."

Yosuke Kurusu wrinkled his nose. Are high school students really that busy? Calling their juniors at nine or ten at night?

She followed the boy into the bathroom. "By the way, Songzhi, do you still have that band photo you showed me before?"

"The one in the practice room?" Jun Matsue turned around, scrolled through his phone, and turned the screen toward the girl.

“That’s right!” Kurusu Yosei stared at the photo for a while, then pointed to the girl standing next to the boy, smiling and holding a drumstick.

"Who is this girl? Why didn't you mention her before?"

In the photo Cai Jiang sent her, there were two girls carrying instrument bags. Could the one holding the drumsticks be the second drummer in the band?

And why does she look so familiar?

The girl's memory wasn't as good as Matsueda Jun's. When she was admiring the cherry blossoms at Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, her attention was focused on the two girls who were going against her, so she didn't have a deep impression of Yamami Maki, whom she had only met once.

“Didn’t you ask me about the band? She’s not a band member,” Jun Matsue said matter-of-factly.

"You met her before at Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. She's Maki Yamami, Tomatsu Tomoka's senior. The practice room we borrowed is owned by her family."

"Ah!" The girl found the source of the familiarity, but because Jun Matsueda's tone was too ordinary, she did not connect the person who had just spoken on the phone in the room with the person who appeared in the photo.

"So it was Yuuka-chan's wingman!"

"..." Kurusu Yosei stared at the photos on the boy's phone again.

The wingman is in the photo, but why isn't the main character there? The girl thinks this girl named Yamami Maki is a bit strange.

I hope to see her next time I go to the practice room... I want to see what kind of person this guy is.

In the other bedroom, Yamami Maki, who had just finished a voice call, sneezed, and her mother's voice came from outside the door.

"Don't set the air conditioner too low, Moji, or you'll catch a cold!"

"Okay~" She rolled over in bed, pulled the blanket over herself, and covered her slender figure under her light clothing.

Maybe it's Matsueda thinking of me? The girl thought to herself, unaware that someone else was calling her name.

Tomorrow is Sunday, and Yuka will definitely be at the practice room, so I won't be able to see Matsueda. There's a campaign briefing on Monday, and I can openly chat with Matsueda about the proposals. Finding a performance venue can also be put on the agenda...

The meticulous young woman started planning, and the many ideas in her mind eventually turned into one thought. She sighed as she looked at the bright ceiling.

"I kind of want to see Matsue-san..."

Monday noon, in the activity room of Haneoka High School.

"That concludes the agenda for this meeting. Please prepare your campaign proclamations and posters and submit them to the Electoral Affairs Commission before the deadline. The schedule for your campaign speeches will be announced separately. Thank you for your cooperation."

Jun Matsuoka stood in front of the podium, watching everyone leave one by one. He put his speech and related explanatory documents together, stretched, and realized it was another meeting that would consume his lunch break.

He stepped down from the podium and collected the documents that some people had left in the classroom—those who couldn't even keep their documents safe had little chance of winning the election; it seemed that not everyone in the student council was smart.

A soft knock came at the door. Jun Matsue turned around, and Maki Yami walked into the classroom, smiling and waving at him.

"Thank you for your hard work, Pine Branch!"

"Don't you need to take a lunch break, senior?" He threw the extra documents in his hand into the trash can and returned to the podium.

"I just submitted the revised proposal, and when I came back I ran into my classmates who had just finished their meeting, so I thought I'd come and take a look."

The girl sat in the first row below the podium, like a student listening attentively to the lesson, with the classroom lights swirling around her.

"Time really flies," Yami Maki remarked.

"It's already the end of June in the blink of an eye." Jun Matsueda nodded. "There's the sports meet in July, the student council will be busy again, won't they?"

"This should be the last big event we organize," the girl smiled. "We need to share some experience with the first-year members."

She watched as the boy packed up his things and the two left the classroom together. The students were all huddled in their classrooms enjoying the air conditioning, and there were hardly any people in the corridor.

"Have you been keeping an eye on the performance venue, Matsueda-san?" The girl, who had been building up her story for so long, finally revealed her true intentions.

“Caijiang and the others went to two places last weekend, but the schedule was full. We’ll have to see how it goes next.”

"It's a bit of a pity," Yami Maki said, a slight smile playing on her lips.

"Shall we go take another look after that?"

"Of course, but won't that take up your time, senior?" Jun Matsue turned to look at the girl beside him.

“If I’m not available, Matsue-kun can find someone else to go with her.” The senior smiled, naturally putting herself as the top priority.

Just as the boy was about to answer, a girl walked towards them in the hallway. Tomatsu Yuka initially showed a surprised expression, but only slightly restrained herself after seeing Yamami Maki next to Matsueda Jun.

"Has Matsueda finished the meeting? Kominato-sensei wants us to go to the office."

After the girl finished speaking, she turned to the senior student next to him and asked, "Did you come back from a meeting with Matsueda-san?"

Yamami Maki waved her hand, "I was on my way to the school administration office to hand in some documents, and I just ran into Matsueda-san on the way."

Tomatsu Tomohana nodded reassuringly, "Then, Matsueda-san, would you like to come to the office with me? If you're tired, I can manage on my own."

"Anyway, I've already lost ten minutes of my afternoon nap," Jun Matsue yawned. "It doesn't matter if I lose another ten minutes."

The cheerful laughter of girls echoed in the hallway, their light voices expanding in the sunlight and drifting away into the distance.

The three eventually parted ways. Yamami Maki opened the back door of her classroom, and a refreshing breeze rushed in. She turned her head and glanced at the two figures walking away.

The corridor without air conditioning was still too hot, making everyone feel restless.

Chapter 308 Embezzlement by the Guard

"Are you free after school today, senior?" Tomatsu Yuka asked the girl next to her while standing in front of the sink.

Yamami Maki turned off the tap, pulled a tissue from the pocket of her skirt, and dried her hands.

"Is there anything I can help you with, Yu-Hana?" She might be available or not, depending on the girl's answer.

"It's not that I have something to do, it's that Songzhi is going to look for a performance venue after school."

“But the brass band is preparing for a competition, so I don’t have much time.” The girl took the tissue from her senior. “If I don’t go, then Mochizuki Haruka and Matsueda will go together.”

"So what does Yuka mean?" Yami Maki asked cautiously, holding a wad of damp tissue in her hand.

"If you're free, senior, go with them—keep an eye on Mochizuki Haruka for me!"

The girl looked down at her phone, pretended to think for two seconds, and said, "I do seem to have some free time today."

"Then I'll leave it to you, senior?" Tomatsu Yuka took a step forward, bringing the two of them closer together, and she carefully observed her senior's expression.

"I know that it might be difficult for you to do this kind of thing, given your personality. It's okay if you don't want to."

Yamami Maki smiled and gently patted the girl's hand with her right hand. "It's alright, it's not like I'm going to fight with Mochizuki-san or anything."

Tomatsu Yuka took the crumpled paper from her senior and threw it into the trash can next to the sink along with her own, letting out a soft sigh.

"Now I realize how busy my senior was back then. I wish I hadn't become the department head..."

“That won’t do.” Yami Maki shook her head firmly. “Without Yuka, Tayo-chan can’t carry the brass band by herself!”

The girl's eyes sparkled with a smile. If Yuka didn't become the club president, wouldn't she have to stay by Matsueda's side forever?

"So, after school today, it'll be the three of us going out together?" Jun Matsue asked, looking at the two girls standing at the school gate.

"Is that right?" The tall girl nodded, while the shorter girl next to her clicked her tongue impatiently.

"It must have been Tomatsu who sent you, right?"

"No, I came here of my own accord." Yami Maki shook her head, and the feeling of saying such things openly and honestly seemed even more pleasant than she had imagined.

As the three walked out of the school gate, the girls consciously gave the middle seat to the boy, adopting a "let's keep to ourselves" attitude.

The afternoon sky was a monotonous blue, without a single cloud in sight, and the sun was shining brightly. Jun Matsue could feel the heat rising from under his school uniform trousers. He looked around and saw that the girls wearing skirts didn't seem to have this problem.

Yamami Maki noticed the boy's gaze and, misunderstanding that he was trying to start a conversation, spoke first.