Am I being simulated by their love affair?

Page 238

"You've traveled the world, do you really think you'd be happy about camping at the foot of Mount Fuji?"

Jun Matsueda threw the empty box into the trash can, and the girl followed him into the station.

"Isn't it something to be happy about not having to stay in school?"

A crowd of people in school uniforms and carrying bags had already filled the hall, and a cacophony of voices filled the air. The boy looked at the two teachers and a girl waving at him from the crowd and sighed.

"That's true."

After walking around the class line from front to back, calling out names several times, and counting the number of students for Kominato Shoko who was shorter than her, Matsueda Jun returned to the student line.

"Matsueda-kun, you've worked hard," Tomatsu Yuka said beside him.

"It's alright, we're lucky that no one was late or got stuck in traffic."

Jun Matsue glanced at Haruka Mochizuki standing behind her. The girls were closer together than usual, and he also saw the two of them talking as they circled around the group.

In short, he had a bad feeling; both of them were acting strangely today.

But there was no time left for him to think.

At 8:30, Class 2-6 boarded the bus on time. Jun Matsueda sat by the window. As the bus left the shadows in front of the station, sunlight shone through the dense buildings and fell on the faces of the passengers.

The bustling streets of Tokyo and the hurried people glided past him like flowing water. The bus, like a zipper, peeled away the outer shell of the neon-lit steel forest and headed towards Mount Fuji, which was supported by lakes and hills.

Whether you take the bus or the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Mount Fuji, it doesn't matter; the journey takes only about two hours. When the blurry silhouette of Mount Fuji appeared at the end of the road, cheers erupted from the passengers.

As the golden light in the distance lifted the shadows from the mountains, Jun Matsue took out his phone and snapped a picture.

He thought to himself, "I should message my senior."

At this time, Jun Matsueda did not anticipate that his journey at the foot of Mount Fuji would mark the beginning of another collapse in his life.

Chapter 423 Flowers, Colors, and You

Although the theme of this accommodation training was camping, Jun Matsue did not immediately see the campsite.

The express bus arrives at a station in Fujiyoshida City, a small town with a city hall, schools, and a hospital, but not a very commercial area.

"It's a bit like Ome City, where the brass band went before," Tomatsu Yuka said with a smile.

"But here you can see Mount Fuji just by looking up."

Looking out over the street, Mount Fuji, with its snow-capped peak, dominated a large part of the sky, a truly breathtaking sight.

"Stop looking at the scenery, get ready to get on the bus." Jun Matsueda turned around and looked at Aya Hirouchi, who was waving to them.

The students of Haneoka High School had just finished lunch, and their luggage had been transferred to the local bus booked by the school. After a short rest, it was time for their afternoon activities.

The bus first went to Oshino Village, next to Fujiyoshida. Oshino Hakkai, a World Heritage Site, is quite famous in Japan—although the eldest daughter of the Mochizuki family doesn't seem to approve of it.

"That's it?" The girl walked out of the tourist attraction. "It doesn't even look as good as Mount Fuji in the distance."

“It’s just a classic courtyard.” Jun Matsueda followed her out the door. “Of course, Miss Mochizuki, who has traveled the world, wouldn’t be interested.”

The so-called "Oshino Hakkai" is actually a garden with eight ponds. It attracts many tourists, but the scenery is only so-so.

Jun Matsueda stopped in front of a vending machine by the roadside. He glanced at the blue soda with "Mount Fuji" written on it and asked, "Would you like a bottle, Mochizuki?"

The girl shook her head, watched him toss in a coin, then looked up as if she sensed something and looked at Tomatsu Yuka who was walking towards her.

"You're bored too?"

Tomatsu Yuka took off her white sun hat, saying, "With more tourists, the scenery becomes boring."

She looked at the boy who had taken out the soda and asked, "What do you think, Matsue-san?"

Jun Matsue pried open the soda bottle cap, nodded, and the girl smiled and continued speaking.

"Actually, I think it's also due to the times—the scenery has become a tourist attraction, surrounded by walls and turnstiles. The thousand-year-old water source called 'the sea' has been fitted with railings and a bunch of signs with instructions and precautions. How can it look good?"

The tourists resting near the vending machine nodded silently.

Tomatsu Yuka walked up to the boy, and Matsueda Jun took a step back, watching her choose in front of the vending machine window.

"Therefore, I believe that some overprotective behaviors are unnecessary; the more you protect, the less beautiful it becomes."

Before inserting the coin, the girl turned around and looked at him.

Whether it's people or things, the principle is the same, she said with her eyes.

"..." Jun Matsueda glanced at the message on his phone. It was a photo of the approaching Mount Fuji at noon, but his senior hadn't replied yet, probably because she was still in class.

He tilted his head back and took a sip of soda; it tasted a bit too sweet, like it was mixed with cotton candy.

"Let's go, next place."

Continuing eastward from Oshino Village, we arrived at Yamanakako Village, where our campsite for the night was located. The bus first went to the "Hana no Miya" Park on the edge of the village.

Although it's called a park, it's more like a flower field. The dullness and monotony that people feel at Oshino Hakkai are swept away by the vast sea of ​​flowers. Young girls, holding their phones and cameras, stroll along the edge of the flower field, looking for the best spots where the flowers and Mount Fuji can be seen in the distance.

Tomatsu Tomoka was called away by her friends to take photos together, Mochizuki Haruka was nowhere to be found, and Matsueda Jun walked alone along the path in the middle of the flowerbed, gazing at Mount Fuji in the clouds, with a sweet fragrance in the breeze.

The phone in his pocket vibrated, and Matsueda Jun finally received a message from Yamami Maki—a simple exclamation emoji.

After thinking for a while, the boy took a picture of the sea of ​​flowers and the snow-capped peak in front of him and sent it to the camera.

The image was quickly marked as read, but it took several minutes for the senior student to reply.

"The scenery is beautiful!"

Jun Matsuoka pursed his lips. The girl didn't ask him where this was, nor did she ask him to take more photos. Her usual curious attitude seemed to have temporarily disappeared.

He glanced at the time on the screen; it was 2:22 PM, shortly after school had ended.

"Are you still in class, senior? Or are you busy right now?"

"No!" The girl seemed a little more lively. "I just woke up early today, so I'm not very energetic."

Yamami Maki didn't want to admit that she hadn't gone to class today and had just been aimlessly spacing out at home.

The boy thought for a moment, "Then let's stop talking for now and talk after school. If you're really sleepy, you can go buy a can of coffee."

"Good~"

No new messages appeared on the screen. Jun Matsueda swiped his finger up to look at the previous chat history. His gaze stopped on the photo of the flower field—there was a blurry shadow in the distance of the path.

I clicked on it and saw a boy in a school uniform from behind. He put down his phone and continued walking along the path.

The golden sunflowers on both sides gradually disappeared, turning into the vibrant colors of cosmos flowers. Then, the color of the flower sea gradually unified, transforming into a pinkish-red hue.

The figure at the end of the path gradually grew larger. The girl's black hair, with its slightly wavy curls, swayed in the wind. The approaching footsteps made her turn around warily. After recognizing the person, her cold gaze softened.

"What are you doing standing here?" Jun Matsue mimicked the girl's question from earlier at the train station.

"I'm waiting for the gardener or other staff to appear." Mochizuki Haruka smoothed her long hair and looked at the sea of ​​red flowers surrounding the two of them.

"I want to know what kind of flower this is."

The boy stood in front of the flowerbed for a while, then the girl walked up to him.

“Five-petaled flower, small in size, dense inflorescence…” Jun Matsue stood up. “It should be the flower of red buckwheat, which is called ‘Takane Ruby’ in Japan.”

"You like this flower?" he asked, looking at the girl beside him.

The girl shook her head. "It looks a bit like a flower I've seen before."

"Yu Meiren?" the boy said without hesitation.

"How did you know?" Mochizuki Haruka looked up in surprise.

"Because when you went back to Tokyo, didn't you bring me one? You even said you saw it in a simulation."

The girl nodded. "In the simulation, you took me to see it, but in reality, I went to see it alone."

She reached out and picked a flower from in front of her, examining it in her palm—the petals were small and looked quite different from those of the red spider lily. However, if you looked at the sea of ​​flowers from a distance, their colors seemed somewhat similar.

“This place is pretty good.” She turned to the boy and said, “The flower field we didn’t get to see together back then is finally here.”

Just as Jun Matsueda was about to speak, the girl suddenly reached out and covered his mouth.

"Don't say you like Yamami Maki." Mochizuki Haruka's tone was domineering and authoritarian.

"Now that it's just the two of us here, you're mine."

The wind blowing through the sea of ​​flowers grew a little louder, as if it were also watching him make a fool of himself.

Chapter 424 Signs and Persuasion

On the way to the campsite from the "City of Flowers," Jun Matsueda received some unexpected news.

"You mean the senior didn't go to class today?" He looked at Tomatsu Yuka sitting next to him.

The seats on the bus are not assigned and change depending on the entertainment activities on board. The boy who had been sitting next to Jun Matsueda was engrossed in his phone, but he moved away when the girl stood in front of him.

“Yes, that’s right.” Tomatsu Yuka nodded to him. “It was told by her senior in the same class that she took sick leave today.”

Matsueda Jun frowned and recalled that Yami Maki didn't seem to have mentioned this matter explicitly today.

"When did you become so concerned about her?" He looked at the girl, a sense of unease creeping into his heart.

She used to act like she would never speak to her senior again.

"Even if I don't care about her, news about her will still come to me on its own."

Tomatsu Yuka's smile was tinged with bitterness. She looked out the window behind the boy. Lake Yamanaka was to the right of the bus, and the rising and falling waters of the lake could already be seen from the roadside.

"Even though she left the student council, she's still a highly regarded figure in various circles. I saw messages from other girls in the girls' group chat."

Seemingly afraid that the boy wouldn't believe her, she took out her phone, opened the app, and placed it in front of him.

"People are talking about it in the brass band group, and in several other groups where we often organize activities."

Jun Matsue took the phone and looked at it. Just as the girl had said, there was a group chat that he was in, but he hadn't really looked at the messages in it.

"Of course I don't want to care about my senior, but just like I'll see what she's doing, she'll probably see what I'm doing too, right?" Tomatsu Yuka looked into the boy's eyes.

"Just like we still meet in the hallway—no matter how much I try to distance myself from her, my senior might still be affected by me."

"So I decided to face these things head-on."

"If I make my senior feel bad, then my senior will make Songzhi sad."

"I just didn't want to make Matsueda sad."

The sound of boys playing cards and shouting came from the front of the carriage. Jun Matsueda returned the phone to the girl.

"You don't need to do this."

"It's fine if Matsu-san doesn't intend to accept my feelings," Tomatsu Yuka frowned, her voice tinged with barely concealed anger. "Does she also intend to control what I think?"

Jun Matsue fell silent. He sighed inwardly, opened the car window, and heard the sound of the wind whipping the lake water against the shore.

"Thank you," he said to the girl.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, the people who left Tokyo finally arrived at the campsite at Lake Yamanaka. Jun Matsueda tightened his backpack and stepped onto the open ground covered with sand and wood chips.

"Are you going to sleep here tonight...?"

This is a large open space by the lake facing Mount Fuji. According to the staff, it can easily accommodate 100 tents. The camping plan for the accommodation training is for two classes to go together, and the class that arrived first has already set up their tents in the distance.

“It’s all bare…” Tomatsu Yuka hugged her large backpack and curiously stepped on the ground.

"I thought it would be a lawn like the one by Lake Ashi." She didn't think this place was very nice.

“The lawn by the lake is not suitable for camping.” Mochizuki Haruka, carrying her bag, stepped between the two. “The soil gets damp easily, and there will be a lot of mosquitoes. You’ll have a hard time sleeping there.”

"Come to think of it, you seem to be the most experienced one right now," Jun Matsue said casually.

The girl proudly puffed out her chest, "I've slept in a tent in the Sahara Desert."

"Alright, alright!" The tall and slender Hirouchi Aya walked to the center of the field and clapped her hands.

"Have you all finished chatting? Put your luggage over there and come over here to listen to the professional instructors from the Wilderness Education Association teach you the basics of camping!"

The noisy students approached the middle-aged man in green gear. Jun Matsueda put his backpack aside and stood at the back of the crowd to listen to the lecture.

"Attention, students!" The man's voice was very loud. "I'll start by explaining how to set up a tent. You'll receive one-person, two-person, and three-person tents later. First, remember to check your tent pegs..."

Jun Matsueda lowered his head to make sure he could hear the coach's voice, then took his phone out of his pocket.

Clicking on Yamami Maki's profile picture, the girl's last post was about an outdoor equipment store they visited together a few days ago, but he didn't show his face.

"Is the senior student sick?" The boy recalled in his mind that the girl's voice did sound somewhat low.