Am I being simulated by their love affair?

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"I might leave the band by the end of this semester at the latest, so you guys better start looking for a drummer in advance."

"Huh? Why?" Aya Miyamura suddenly stood up. "Is Jun-nii going to join another band?"

The boy shook his head again. "I just want to focus on my studies."

The girl stopped talking and stared at him for a long time. She knew very well that her brother had never worried about her studies.

Izumi Mizuki's expression was calm; she was used to it. "No matter when you quit, as long as you're still in this band, don't treat us with a perfunctory attitude."

“I understand.” Jun Matsueda glanced at the drum set beside him. “I’ll give it a try with lyrics later.”

The first band meeting of the new semester came to an end, and Jun Matsue was the last to leave the school, facing the setting sun.

He walked past the bulletin board on the school avenue, where campaign notices, previously wrinkled from the damp weather, had dried and were now reflecting the dim sunlight.

But those wrinkles—the marks left by the typhoon—cannot be erased.

Chapter 392 An Outlet for Emotions

That evening, not long after Jun Matsueda finished dinner, Aya Miyamura knocked on the door of apartment 507.

"Excuse me~" the girl said as she entered the room, her tone obedient.

However, after looking around and finding that Kurusu Yosei was not there, she immediately turned around and pounced on the boy with the ferocity of a facehugger.

"Brother Chun, what exactly happened?"

"Why don't we go for a walk and talk as we go?"

Jun Matsue knew that Aya was talking about the band, and the girl would never believe his excuse.

So Miyamura Aya stayed for less than a minute before following the boy out of the apartment.

There were quite a few people on the streets tonight. The typhoon had just passed, and citizens wanted to take advantage of the good weather to go out for a walk. The two of them randomly chose a less crowded side street and headed south.

"Simply put, I'm going to start dating." Jun Matsueda's first words scared the girl into hiding in the roadside bushes.

"Huh?!" Aya Miyamura stepped back onto the sidewalk, her face full of shock. "With whom?"

"Senior Yamami".

The girl's voice rose again, "Yamami-senpai?! Is that the Yami-senpai I know?"

“It’s Yamami Maki.” Jun Matsueda nodded.

He had already told his senior that he planned to tell Miyamura Aya about their relationship, and Yamami Maki did not object—after all, the person who should least know already knew, so one more person in the know wouldn't make a difference.

"Yamami-neechan?" Miyamura Aya blinked in disbelief. "Not Tomatsu-neechan, not Haruka-neechan, and certainly not Yosei-neechan?"

"What do you mean by this?" Jun Matsueda turned his head to the side. "Tomatsu and Mochizuki are one thing, but why put Kurusu at the very end?"

The girl gave an awkward laugh, "Because she's your... roommate..."

"And she's an idol! A roommate with a great personality and who can cook—what guy could resist that?"

Although Miyamura Aya thought that Mochizuki Haruka, who had been visiting her frequently recently, had a good chance, given the unique advantage of living together, Akira Yosei was the number one sister-in-law in her heart.

"Stop." Jun Matsue waved his hand. "You're not allowed to say things that disrupt morale in the future."

"Oh," Aya Miyamura replied regretfully, "but what does that have to do with your plan to leave the band?"

Jun Matsuoka stopped at the intersection and let a middle-aged couple holding their child's hands pass in front of him.

"In short, my senior's family background is not simple. If I want to be with her, I have to abide by her family's rules."

"But isn't Yao's family also very powerful? They don't have these kinds of rules and regulations, do they?"

The girl asked instinctively, but she immediately realized that this was a topic that could disrupt morale, so she looked up and around.

"The cicadas in Tokyo are really annoying; they chirp from morning till night."

The girl's attempt to change the subject was somewhat clumsy, but Matsueda Jun still looked up at the shade of the trees above.

"The worst is over."

As Miyamura Aya walked along the road, the cicadas chirping around her became sparse and dense, no longer pouring out all at once like before, blocking out all the space except for the high temperature of summer.

After all, it's already September, and the peak of the noisy cicada season is coming to an end.

The cicadas' chirping was overwhelming in July, and the noise was like a burst dam in August. But as September arrived in Tokyo, the intensity of the cicadas' chirping finally began to gradually decrease, and soon it would be replaced by the chirping of autumn insects.

As if her enthusiasm had been stolen by the typhoon that had just passed, the girl thought to herself, and suddenly felt a little sad.

"I will miss Chun-ge."

"What are you talking about?" The boy turned his head. "It's not like I'm going to run away."

"That's true. Since Chun-ge is planning to leave the band, we have to squeeze every last drop out of him before he leaves~"

Jun Matsue glanced at her helplessly, and the girl giggled.

Miyamura Aya wouldn't let the boys around her notice her disappointment. Since Jun-ge had said these things to her, she definitely needed support and understanding, so the girl naturally chose to stand on her brother's side.

"So how did Chun-ge and Mo-ji-jie meet?"

What do you like about her? When did you both start to like each other? What does it mean to say you're ready to start a relationship?

The girl quickly changed how she addressed Yamami Maki and started asking her questions incessantly.

“When you like someone, you like them even for their flaws. Of course, my senior doesn’t have any flaws…” Jun Matsue looked up and recalled.

"The main thing is that I feel very relaxed when I'm with her, just like in the TV dramas I watched before."

"Feeling is the most important thing—"

The two walked and talked, accompanied by the cicadas' chirping as their season drew to a close. At first, Miyamura Aya listened with great interest, but when Matsueda Jun recounted the unexpected events of the previous weekend, the girl's expression became quite complicated.

"What should we do..."

"It's none of your business to worry about it." Jun Matsueda stopped in his tracks; the two had already arrived at the foot of the Kugayama Apartments.

"I'm telling you this so that you won't bring up related topics when you're with them."

"As for how to solve the problem, leave it to me and them."

"Oh..." The girl nodded, took out her phone, opened the group chat interface, and looked for any sensitive topics she had mentioned recently.

Thankfully not, because there wasn't much chat history in the group this week—no wonder she hadn't seen Tomatsu Tomohisa and Yamami Maki talking much...

That concludes tonight's walk. Jun Matsue watched the girl disappear into the dark shadows of the apartment building before turning and leaving.

His steps were much lighter than when he came. After crossing the deserted intersection, he took out his earphones from his pocket and played Izumi Mizuki's wordless song.

The musical phrases unfolded in my mind. It was a repetitive and tight prelude, somewhat monotonous, yet it seemed to be suppressing energy, waiting to accumulate and explode.

Jun Matsueda heard it at the beginning of summer vacation. At the time, he just thought it would be a good song, but he did not have the idea of ​​writing lyrics for it.

Or rather, at the time, he couldn't think of what kind of lyrics he could write for this melody.

Because music, like language, is an outlet for emotions, one must have the desire to express oneself in order to acquire the ability to do so.

But now, almost a month later, when he listens to this song again, Jun Matsueda can clearly feel something brewing in his heart along with the music.

It's not a passionate melody, but it's not monotonous either. Compared to everyday lyricism, it may not be as intense, but it still wants to express something.

Everything was expressed naturally. Jun Matsue hummed a few lines along with the melody.

"It wasn't a fixed, unwavering gaze."

"Something that can be found very easily~"

He opened his memo and gave the unnamed song a temporary name.

"Let's call it 'Instant'."

Chapter 393 Breakup

On Friday, September 5th, at noon, Jun Matsue sat in the newsroom, listening to the weak chirping of cicadas outside the window.

"Imokawa, has your TV series already been released?" He looked at the girl sitting opposite him.

The news department had just finished a meeting, mainly about the filming and reporting arrangements for the student council election. The first-year students had already left, leaving only Jun Matsueda and Natsumi Imokawa in the room.

"Two episodes have already aired." Natsumi Imokawa nodded seriously, "But that's not 'our' drama. I'm just learning from the crew."

"Didn't you film this too?" The boy still remembered the girl carrying the camera and circling around the male and female actors.

"But those weren't shots I created; I was just following the storyboard." The girl said seriously.

"Only things I create with my own hands have meaning."

When Natsumi Imokawa uttered her words, it was as if even the chirping of cicadas outside and the sound of air conditioning inside paused for a moment.

Junya Matsueda was also taken aback—the girl in front of him was always like this, appearing strange and immature to others, and always saying things that were out of place.

But she always knew what she wanted and how to achieve it. Natsumi Imokawa had her own understanding of this bizarre world, which may be different from that of ordinary people, but in fact, she was the most mature among her peers.

"Um, I was just saying it casually, don't mind it, Matsugi..."

The girl's face quickly turned red, and she shrank her neck, as if the resolute girl from just moments ago was merely an illusion.

“What Imokawa said makes a lot of sense.” The boy sitting in the chair shifted his position. “I’ve been writing lyrics for the band’s new song recently, and the feeling of creating is really wonderful, completely different from when I’m performing.”

Natsumi Imokawa's eyes widened slightly. "Is Matsue writing her own songs? When can we hear them?"

"It's about writing lyrics, not composing a song," he corrected the girl. "The melody was written by Izumi."

Jun Matsueda finalized the first draft of the lyrics after returning to his apartment the night before last. He sent it to Mizuki Izumi, who seemed to have a new inspiration and is currently re-arranging the music.

"That's amazing!" Natsumi Imokawa said with an envious expression.

"Let's wait until the actual performance to talk about it," the boy said, shaking his head.

He hesitated for a moment, then steered the conversation back to the TV series, "Does Imokawa know what the ending of 'Now That Things Have Come to This' is?"

"Didn't you say you weren't interested in pine branches before?" The girl tilted her head.

“People always change.” Jun Matsueda waved his hand. “I want to know what the ending will be for the female lead and the second female lead.”

"Did they remain friends in the end?" He felt that this drama could offer some insights.

“The first female lead and the second female lead…” Natsumi Imokawa recalled the script on her father’s desk, “I don’t know, the first season’s ending only went up to the point where the first female lead saw the second female lead kissing the male lead.”

The boy blinked. "Where's the comic?"

"The comic isn't finished yet; it's all memories now, so Dad adjusted the story's narrative style accordingly when he adapted it."

"Alright then." Jun Matsueda sighed. It seemed he still had to rely on himself. "Time to go back to the classroom."

Natsumi Imokawa wanted to stay in the clubroom to study, so the boy returned to the corridor alone. The summer heat lingered, and there weren't many people in the corridor, but the sounds echoing around were much louder than in the previous days.

Jun Matsue glanced at the classroom he passed. There were two or three people standing on the podium. The boy in the middle had a sash with his name on it on his shoulder. There was also a poster on the blackboard—a poster that the election committee and the student council had reviewed together.

"It's a campaign speech..." he suddenly remembered.

Starting this week, each candidate can give a speech in each class during the morning meeting and lunch break. The speech will generally not be too long so as not to affect study and rest.

"Our stance is to reduce the burden of activities. I know many students complain that school activities are too frequent and require a lot of energy to prepare. If I were to become the student council president..."

Jun Matsue ignored the boy's voice and walked toward his classroom, pushing open the back door.

"Hoping to get everyone's support~"

A lively, girlish voice rang out in the classroom.

Unsurprisingly, there were also candidates campaigning in his class. Matsueda Jun didn't pay any attention and lowered his head to pull out his seat.

However, when he looked up, he found that Yamami Maki, who had a somewhat melancholy expression, was also standing by the podium.

"I greatly admire Vice President Yamami Maki, and I specifically asked her to be my recommender this time. I am very grateful for Yamami-senpai's support!"

The girl bowed to the senior student standing next to her.

Yamami Maki smiled slightly, then looked at Matsueda Jun in the back row of the classroom. Her eyes were filled with joy, but after noticing Tomatsu Yuka, who was always looking down next to him, the girl's gaze dimmed again.

Matsueda Jun's gaze drifted off to somewhere as she watched her senior's speech. She had been listening attentively to her junior's speech, but now she was becoming absent-minded.

He then turned to look at Tomatsu Yuka beside him. The girl had her head down, her pen trembling on her workbook, engrossed in a sea of ​​problems.

Having been in contact with Yamami Maki for the past few days, he knew very well that the two hadn't spoken a single word since Monday. Although the senior wanted to gain her junior's forgiveness, she was helpless against Tomatsu Yuka's refusal to communicate.

They would bump into each other in the hallway and at the sink, but Tomatsu Yuka would pretend not to see anything. Even when Yamami Maki showed up at the brass band club after school under the guise of visiting, the girl would only have basic polite exchanges with her.

"Our proposal is to deepen the service orientation and sense of responsibility of the student union, and increase feedback channels for everyone..."