Am I being simulated by their love affair?

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He put on his coat and went out the door. He quickly returned to the girl with a bottle of mineral water. As the cool liquid flowed down her throat, Yamami Maki felt her burning body finally begin to cool down.

"So what exactly are you thinking?"

Before the passion had faded, the boy asked the girl in front of him a question.

Yamami Maki didn't speak. Matsueda Jun looked at her trembling eyelashes, on which a tear still clung.

"I told you, it's not too late for you to regret it now, senior." His tone turned cold and hard.

"...Let's not be lovers," the girl whispered.

"what?"

"Please don't let your family know that I'm Matsueda's boyfriend, okay?" Yami Maki asked with pleading eyes.

"That way, Matsueda won't have to sacrifice so much, and we can continue our relationship."

"It's okay even if I can't be your girlfriend, Matsueda-kun, I'll do whatever you want with me."

Is this okay?

This is a win-win solution, at least that's what Yami Maki thinks.

However, what she saw with hope was Jun Matsue's indifferent gaze.

"Stop dreaming," he said calmly.

Chapter 469 Reconciliation

Stop dreaming.

Yamami Maki was stunned; she had never imagined that a boy would answer in such a tone.

"What do you mean by 'we're not lovers anymore'?" Jun Matsueda frowned as he looked at the girl. "If we're not lovers anymore, then what is our relationship?"

Lover? Friend with benefits? Sex partner? Or more than friends but less than lovers?

"No..." Yamami Maki tried to explain, "We're a couple, we're a couple, we just don't let my family know. It doesn't matter if we tell Aya-chan Yuka or anyone else—"

"Aren't you being too naive?" the boy interrupted her in his still calm tone. "Who will help us keep this a secret?"

The girl was speechless for a moment.

"Will Tomatsu help us keep it a secret? Do you expect your family to cover it up for us when they contact your classmates at school?"

Jun Matsueda's voice gradually grew louder.

"So how are we supposed to 'date'? Before, we could be free outside of school, but now will we only be able to do it in enclosed spaces and make sure there are no cameras?"

"What's the difference between that and having an affair?!"

His stern question was like a bolt of lightning, striking Yamami Maki's eyes. The girl's expression returned to how it was when she had just left the classroom, as if it were the end of a final burst of energy.

"Luckily, there are no cameras in the office," the boy said with a self-deprecating tone.

"And another thing, are you planning to keep this a secret forever? It's one thing in college, but what about after graduation? Are you going to continue this clandestine relationship like this?"

"...I didn't think it through, I'm sorry." The girl immediately admitted her mistake.

Jun Matsue didn't know what to say, so he sighed.

"I can tell you haven't been doing well lately; you can even bring up ideas like this."

"So, senior, do you regret it at all?"

He persisted in asking this question, simply wanting to know the answer.

“…I really want to say that I regret it.” Yami Maki lowered her eyes. She couldn’t see the boy’s face, but stared at his hands resting on the armrests of the chair.

"Of course I'm in pain when you're not around, but at least when you're with Yuka and the others... you seem to be doing alright."

"I thought that even if we broke up, Matsueda would still be able to find happiness, right?"

Jun Matsueda suddenly stood up from his chair and looked at the girl in front of him.

"Do you think I'm happy?!"

"Why do you think I acted so close to them?!"

"I want you to suffer, to regret it, I want you to change, to change for me!"

The louder he spoke, the lower Yamami Maki lowered her head.

Even though it was under the lights, apart from her black hair, Matsueda Jun couldn't see anything clearly.

“Look at me.” Jun Matsue reached out and lifted the girl’s chin, revealing a deep blackness in her usually bright eyes.

"Senior, what I want is not your body, but your love."

"Do something for me too!!"

Jun Matsue felt that he had changed.

Ordinary relationships shouldn't pursue this kind of thing—if you like someone, be together; if you don't, break up. Isn't that the right way?

Liking something isn't anything special, so why should you expect others to change?

"I...can't do it." Yami Maki said, tears streaming down her face, but her tone remained calm.

"I'm sorry, but perhaps I would rather choose family than my own preferences."

Liking something isn't that important; it's just accepting the fact.

"Then just watch me change, right?" Jun Matsue felt that everything had returned to square one.

Yamami Maki's smile was bitter; she had given up on herself.

"I don't want you to sacrifice so much."

"Standing next to Matsueda now, thinking about all that you've done for me, I only feel endless pressure..."

"And even if we accept all of this, will Yuka and Mochizuki be content? Can we really be together smoothly? I keep asking myself these questions."

"I feel that my liking is nothing compared to theirs."

"I can't handle this pressure."

“Weak, cowardly, fragile…” The girl searched for words to describe herself. “I always said I was an ordinary person, but now I should say I am ugly.”

As Yamami Maki said this, her words became more fluent.

"I know that Songzhi has a good memory. I told you before that if I embarrass myself in front of you in the future, please erase me from your memory."

"Perhaps it's better not to delete it." Her smile carried a hint of the old days.

"Because that's just who I am."

Jun Matsue stood silently in front of the girl for a long time before finally sitting down.

When Maki Yamami and Jun Matsueda began to develop feelings for each other, she might have liked the boy who was always in control and capable of doing anything, while he might have liked the girl who was always methodical, gentle, and kind.

However, the two people sitting in the room now seem to have lost sight of each other's original selves.

Those hidden yet passionate feelings were buried deep in their hearts in the past.

When you're in love, you can immediately understand each other's words, but when you reject someone, it always takes a long time to explain it to them before they understand.

This fragile and powerless emotion brewed a bitter taste in the mouths of the two silent people at this moment; it was the taste of tragedy.

Jun Matsue didn't want to ask if he regretted it; he was tired.

“I actually wanted to keep provoking you until you came to me on your own,” he broke the silence. “But when I heard that you didn’t do well on the mock exam, I couldn’t help but come to you. I guess I lost.”

Yamami Maki had stopped crying; she was just staring intently at the boy's face, like a patient on the verge of death, longing to carry the impressions of those around her into eternity.

"That's settled then," the boy said with a smile. "Have you decided which university you want to attend, senior?"

They talked as if they had returned to the way they first met.

The girl nodded. "If possible, I'd like to study literature or education at Waseda University or Keio University."

“That’s good.” Both schools have higher requirements than Ochanomizu University, and Jun Matsue supports her decision. “Given your previous performance, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

"I won't deliberately provoke you anymore. You should focus on your exams. Whether you're dating or not, nothing is more important than getting into university."

"..." Yami Maki forced a smile, "It's just a goal, it takes a lot of effort to achieve."

"I believe you can do it, senior." The boy said this in a daze.

He had said those words many times before, but now, recalling them, it all seemed like a very, very long time ago.

For those whose memories never fade, there's often this illusion—so many things happen in the blink of an eye, it all feels like yesterday. But this sense of distant recollection seems to be appearing more frequently lately.

He has indeed changed.

"Matsueda-kun," the girl said with a smile at the end, "in order to study hard, I may have to avoid walking in front of you from now on, otherwise I'm afraid I won't be able to control myself and will pounce on you like I did today."

“…Okay.” Junya Matsueda smiled.

So the two didn't see each other again until the common exam in mid-January.

Chapter 470 Digestion

At 7 p.m., Jun Matsueda returned to his apartment and parked his bicycle in the bike shed behind the building.

The sky was already dark, with only streetlights illuminating the open spaces at both ends of the bike shed. He picked up his schoolbag and walked towards the unit entrance at the front of the building.

The tightly closed metal doors appeared repeatedly and silently before his eyes. He found the leftmost one that belonged to him and entered the password.

As the weather grew colder, Jun Matsueda thought to himself as the gate beeped to indicate that it had been successfully unlocked.

I didn't feel it while riding the bike, but once I stopped, I felt the air around me was chilly.

However, it's also possible that his body had been extremely hot not long ago, and now that it has suddenly cooled down, he is having some difficulty adapting.

So Jun Matsue ran up the stairs in a flash.

"You're back so late today." Mochizuki Haruka walked into the living room of 507 and looked at the boy sitting at the dining table eating a convenience store bento.

Jun Matsue, with a spoon in his mouth, glanced back at her and said, "You know perfectly well what I was doing, so why are you pretending to be stupid?"

The girl changed into the slippers she had secretly left in the entryway, walked over to the boy, bent down and sniffed his shoulder, then showed a look of disgust.

"It smells like hormones."

"...Take a shower after dinner." Jun Matsueda silently buttoned up his coat collar; the shirt underneath wasn't completely dry yet.

"You two didn't have a breakup sex, did you?" the girl asked abruptly.

"Who taught you to say such things?" The boy turned his face away in surprise.

Mochizuki Haruka remained standing beside him, her expression unchanged. The girl's words, spoken with such a delicate and aloof demeanor, were incredibly impactful.

"It's not like I haven't taken a physiology class. Do you think I'm talking about middle school girls who blush at the sight of gold leaf?" She raised an eyebrow. "Many of the hot girls in school started dating in middle school."

"That's enough, that's enough." Jun Matsueda turned around and continued eating the tomato omelet rice in his bowl. "I don't want to keep talking about this while I'm eating."

"You still haven't answered me!" The girl pulled up a chair and sat down next to him. "Have you done it yet?"

"No, we just chatted and opened up."

"No way, it's this late?" Mochizuki Haruka was skeptical.

Matsueda Jun glanced at her helplessly, "If you really did it, would you be back this early?"

Mochizuki Haruka fell silent. She looked up at the iron pot behind the glass wall of the kitchen and began to calculate seriously.

School ends at 3:30. The third-year students have two 100-minute classes with a 10-minute break in between. The two students should meet around 5:30. Subtract half an hour for travel and other miscellaneous time, so it will only take about an hour in total...

"It doesn't seem like enough." The girl nodded; an hour wasn't enough for her.

"..." Jun Matsue glanced at her again and put the last spoonful of omelet rice into his mouth.

"So you won't think about her anymore?" Mochizuki Haruka stood up and helped the boy throw the plastic bowl smeared with ketchup into the trash can.

"Only Jun Matsue in the future can answer this question for you."

At this moment, Jun Matsuoka can only stretch.

He went to the bedroom to get a change of clothes. After leaving the room, the girl waiting at the door followed the boy, and the two walked to the bathroom.

"Why are you following me?" Jun Matsue turned around in front of the bathroom door, blocking the girl who was trying to come in.

“I have to make sure you wash away all her scent!” Mochizuki Haruka blinked and said in a matter-of-fact tone.