Am I being simulated by their love affair?

Page 204

"Matsue, you're not in a relationship, are you?"

The moment the girl asked the question, many solutions flashed through Jun Matsue's mind, and he finally chose the most commonly used and practical one.

Pretending to be stupid.

"What are you talking about?" He finally picked up the chicken leg cutlet. "Dating? Who would I date?"

"Matsueda's pretending to be stupid!" Kurusu Yosei's face suddenly loomed close to his. "That wink you gave before you spoke just now, it was obvious you were trying to lie!"

This guy… Jun Matsue pushed the girl aside, pressing her shoulder, “Aren’t you going to eat?”

Kurusu Yosei returned to his seat and picked up his chopsticks again. "Matsue must be in a relationship. Is it with Tomatsu or Mochizuki?"

Upon hearing the girl's suspicions, Jun Matsue was relieved; she was merely guessing and hadn't actually discovered her senior's existence.

"You're overthinking it. I have no interest in dating them." He said matter-of-factly, and of course he wasn't lying; it was partly true.

"Then why have you and Mochizuki been acting so strangely lately?" Kurusu Yosei asked, frowning and biting the chopsticks in his mouth.

"Is there?"

“There is—” The girl was about to speak again, but was interrupted by Jun Matsue.

"If we keep chatting like this, who knows when we'll finish dinner?"

"Then let's talk about it after dinner!" Lai Qiyang focused on eating, determined to get to the bottom of things tonight.

The two spent twenty minutes finishing off the salad and tofu soup. Two chicken drumsticks were left, which the girl put in the refrigerator for breakfast the next day.

Jun Matsue stood in front of the kitchen sink washing dishes. He watched the clear water wash away the foam on the plates and pondered the topic of the dinner table.

Has he been acting strangely lately?

Previously, when he came to Qiyang, he mentioned that she often looked at her phone and frequently went to her bedroom. However, as she spent more time with her senior during the summer vacation, this behavior has largely disappeared. Moreover, the girl has been busy with activities recently, so the two of them haven't had as much contact.

If anything is unusual, it's that he's been preparing breakfast for Kurusu every day now. Isn't that a good thing for the girl?

Matsueda Jun couldn't find the problem, but the dishes were already washed. He turned off the tap, put the dishes in the cupboard, took off his apron and hung it on the wall, then turned and walked out of the kitchen.

The girl standing guard outside the kitchen blocked his way. "Come with me for an after-dinner walk, and we can have a good chat about your problem, Matsue!"

"Yes, yes." Jun followed her to the entrance to change her shoes.

Then again, why did he listen to Kurusu? She's not his girlfriend...

Even with these thoughts in mind, he still put the key from the shoe cabinet into his pocket and walked out of the apartment with the girl.

The sun's brightest days had passed. As the two walked into the street, the dim sky still held the pink hues of sunset on its edges. The streetlights were not yet on. They headed northwest, the opposite of their usual direction.

"I said, is Matsue really not dating Mochizuki?" Kurusu Yosei asked again. Tomatsu Tomoka was just a cover; Mochizuki Haruka was the one she suspected.

"What exactly gave you this illusion?" Jun Matsue looked at the girl beside him. She was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, her long hair was tied up in a bun, and she was kicking the pebbles under her feet with her head down.

Compared to an idol, Yosuke Kurusu is more like a lively childhood friend who grew up next door.

"It's because you two have been acting strangely lately." The girl raised her right leg and kicked a small stone towards a stray cat in the distance.

"Like last time when Mochizuki inexplicably argued with me, and the way she looked at me was weird too." She gestured with both hands.

"It's like they're looking down on me, but with a hint of pity. Their gaze can suddenly turn angry. In short, they give off a condescending vibe. I hate it!"

"Uh." Jun Matsue was somewhat speechless. He really hadn't noticed anything like this, since Mochizuki would never treat him like that.

"That's just her temper, isn't it? More unpredictable than a cat. Actually, she was praising you before you got in the car that day."

"Really? What did you say to me?" Kurusu Yosei's attention immediately wandered.

"She said you are better than many idols."

"Isn't that the truth?" The girl was unmoved, crossing her arms and letting out a soft snort.

The two walked out of the alley and turned left at the red light at the intersection. The streetlights began to come on, and the brief, hazy world after sunset disappeared. They were now in Tokyo at night.

Yosuke Kurusu continued his topic, "Anyway, I wasn't talking about Mochizuki's personality. Her behavior is like she's getting ahead of me in some way that I don't know about!"

"I really don't know." Jun Matsueda shook his head helplessly.

“And you, Songzhi, too!” The girl walked up to the boy, turned around, and glared at him.

“Lately, your conversations with me have been like writing a report—time, place, what happened, and that’s it.”

"I went to perform in the shopping district with the band today. We've decided to take a break in August, and we probably won't be active again until the start of the school year." Yosuke Kurusu gruffly imitated what Jun Matsueda had said at the dinner table.

"How do you feel? What are your thoughts? What are the details?"

The girl backed away from Jun Matsueda. "If it were the old Matsueda, he would at least have told me how many people came to today's performance, or whether I enjoyed playing the drums today, and so on."

"And you're not curious about me anymore! You didn't even ask a single question about the magazine photoshoots or my previous performances that I mentioned."

"A senior colleague who shared the stage with me before once said that this disappearance of the desire to share is a typical sign of being in a relationship—"

"Because they've already told others, they're too lazy to tell you again!"

"Is it? A pine branch!"

The girl stopped and looked at Jun Matsue approaching her.

She once again accurately caught the boy's unusual behavior, proving that Yosei Kurusu knew Jun Matsueda much better than he did Haruka Mochizuki.

Jun Matsue stared at the girl standing in front of him. He had a headache. Idols aren't supposed to date, so why was his senior, Kurusu, sharing his dating experience with her?

Kurusu Yosei didn't speak, just stared at him without blinking. The girl's eyes shone brightly in the night, even brighter than the streetlights in the distance.

Jun Matsue knew he could no longer lie.

"Hmm..." he said carefully.

"Perhaps, I mean perhaps, I have recently been thinking about being in a relationship."

The girl in front of him blinked, her thick eyelashes trembling slightly. She took a second to understand the answer, then opened her eyes wide.

"what?!"

Her screams drifted away into the night sky.

It seems that Songzhi's family has only completed half of their walk tonight.

Chapter 362 What if we were lovers

Matsueda Jun looked at the surprised girl in front of him. "Why did you stop? Do you want to continue your walk?"

"Let me catch my breath." Yosei Kurusu returned to the boy's side, and the two left the post office in 2-chome behind.

It wasn't until they passed the cemetery behind a nearby temple that the girl came to her senses. "You want to be in a relationship? With whom?"

"With whom..." Jun Matsue had already thought about how to answer, "It's hard to say, Tomatsu, Mochizuki, or Imokawa are all possibilities."

"Huh?" Kurusu Yosei asked again, sounding puzzled.

"Matsue, I've just been a bit busy with performances lately, how did you become like this?" The girl was a little confused.

"Have you forgotten the 'maybe' I kept emphasizing?" The boy's tone was very natural.

"It's just the stirrings of adolescence, wanting someone to be with you. That feeling is probably closer to 'wanting to be in a relationship'."

Kurushi Yosei suddenly realized, "You're in heat?"

"...Does it really have to be this strange way of putting it?"

"Isn't it just being in heat?"

"So be it if you're in heat," Jun Matsueda said with a hint of helplessness.

"At my age, what I crave most is companionship, understanding, and a partner. You've been through this before, so you should understand, right?"

The boy's words were not a lie. Perhaps from the moment he began to have rosy hopes for the new semester, the stirrings of adolescence had never ceased.

"I can't understand it." The girl shook her head. "Back then, I was still dreaming of becoming an idol."

Jun Matsue almost forgot that the guy next to him named Yosei Kurusu wasn't a normal person either.

"So what does pine branch mean by 'anything is possible'? You can get aroused by anyone?"

"Could you please stop using that word?" Jun Matsueda noticed the surprised look in the eyes of the woman in the suit who passed by him.

"Simply put, whether I'm with you or with Tomatsu and Mochizuki, I always feel a flutter in my heart, but this feeling is very impulsive—it's just the hormones of puberty at work, you know?"

Yosuke Kurusu blinked. "If it were a guy, I might believe it, but the way you're calmly telling me this makes me a little suspicious..."

"I'm just being rational."

"Then why wasn't I among the potential romantic partners you mentioned?" the girl pressed on relentlessly.

"You?" Jun Matsue glanced at her. The girl was even wearing a mask for her after-dinner walks now. "Putting everything else aside, you're at the peak of your career, is it appropriate for you to be dating?"

"You can be my little boyfriend~" Yosei Kurusu winked charmingly.

The two turned left again at the intersection and onto the main road, where both the car lights and the streetlights became brighter and denser.

"Kurasu," the boy's tone became a little more serious, "what are your thoughts on love?"

The streetlights in the distance formed a line, and the girl thought for a moment, "It's just two people who like each other being together."

"Then what does it mean to like someone?" Jun Matsue asked again.

"...You feel happy when you're with him, you care about him, and you want to chat with him, right?"

Yosei Kurusu's tone was not firm. Her judgment was based on the romance works she had read and her experience with Jun Matsueda, such as that time at the beach in Shizuoka.

"But friends are like that too, you know?" Jun Matsueda's tone was very gentle, but it made the girl feel inexplicably uncomfortable.

"Of course I can tell the difference between lovers and friends."

"Kurasu, those feelings you mentioned before might actually disappear once you become lovers, you know?"

“But how will you know the outcome if you don’t try to become lovers?” Yosei Kurusu retorted decisively.

The two continued walking, still pretending to be chatting, but they both knew very well that what they were talking about was not so casual.

“Well then.” Jun Matsue stopped at the red light at the intersection and looked at the girl beside him.

"Let's say we're lovers now."

"I don't want to just be your secret boyfriend."

"Everyone else can hold hands, kiss, and maintain intimate distance in the street, so why can I only say 'welcome back' at home?"

“I know you really enjoy being an idol, and I want to support your dream, but I really can’t control my feelings.”

"If I had to choose between my career and me, what would you do?"

Yosuke Kurusu looked at the flashing red light with a hesitant expression.

"Actually, I don't want you to make this choice," the boy continued.

"Because no matter what we choose, we will suffer the same pain—"

The girl interrupted him, "Okay, okay, I know. I'll seriously consider things about liking someone and being in love later."

Yosei Kurusu is not the type of person who thinks things through carefully; otherwise, she wouldn't have dropped out of school and left home to embark on the path of becoming an idol without hesitation.

But the girl was not a rash person either. Although she claimed that Matsueda Jun was her chosen marriage partner, she never told him that she liked him.

Her intuition told her that now was not the right time for either her career or her love life. If she made a wrong move, not only would her idol career fall into an abyss, but her current roommate relationship with Jun Matsueda might also be ruined.

Because she didn't want the kind of fast-paced relationship her mother had, Yosei Kurusu and Jun Matsueda lived together for a year and are still just roommates.

With the final turn, the coffee shop downstairs from the apartment building appeared at the end of the road, but the girl's mood was even worse than when she left home.

She turned to face Jun Matsueda and pulled the mask down to her chin.

"You've changed, you're not the same pine branch you used to be, so why are you acting like it's my fault?"

The girl's words were tinged with anger and grievance. Matsueda Jun, of course, knew that he was in the wrong, and he readily admitted his mistake.

"It was my fault, my attitude was wrong. Miss Kurusu, how can I make you feel better?"

"That attitude towards me when you forbade me from having dinner!"

"it is good."

"Don't ask me those kinds of questions that were deliberately difficult for me!"

"I will try my best."

"Be my number one fan!"