Am I being simulated by their love affair?

Page 631

Sure enough, it was from the "San Tingtai Rental Exchange Group"—Lai Qiyang had probably just finished washing up and took a picture of the snow outside on the balcony.

"What do you think about us renting a house with a rooftop terrace?"

The chat interface still showed the room type messages the girls had sent earlier, but Jun Matsueda didn't scroll up much—Tomatsu, who had gotten up early, had already replied in the group.

"With a rooftop terrace..." Tomatsu Yuka sent a confused rabbit emoji, "That must be very expensive, right?"

“It’s not that it belongs to us!” Miss Idol replied immediately.

"Ideally, the apartment I rent should have a rooftop terrace—that way I can go up and play in the snow when it snows!"

"..." A smiling emoji appeared in the group chat, and the boy staring at the screen couldn't help but smile as well.

Now, when Tomatsu looks at his phone, he definitely has a polite expression that says, "Go on, I'm listening."

"Ignore her." A cool voice rang in his ears. Matsueda Jun turned his head and sent a voice message to Mochizuki Haruka, who was walking by, with a look of disgust.

"Kurasu is just being crazy. Just find a place as I said before—two adjacent three-bedroom apartments, or a dormitory-style youth apartment with common areas."

"What's wrong with me?" Kurusu Yosei sent a muffled voice message from the other end, probably busy eating breakfast.

"I know," Tomatsu Yuka said, without sending a voice message. "Are you already on your way to school?"

At this point, Jun Matsue opened the input box and wrote, "Ten more minutes until Haneoka High School."

"Good~"

The "Sanyingtai Rental Exchange Group" quieted down again. The boy put away his phone and took his lover's hand as they crossed the intersection where the green light had turned on.

“Matsue is really bold…” Mochizuki Haruka stared at his profile, “He actually dared to put us in the same group.”

Jun Matsue winked at the zebra crossing.

Didn't Aya-chan do something like that before? "Dominating Yuqiu" excluded him back then, and the boys still remember it.

"It's not like I'm asking you to share your daily lives..." he said slowly.

"As the name suggests, it's just a rental exchange." Jun Matsueda moved to another spot, letting the girl return to the safe inner side of the road.

“If we don’t create a group chat, I’ll have to relay messages between the three of you—that’s much more tiring than working a part-time job.”

Mochizuki Haruka snorted loudly, then casually picked up a clump of snow from the green belt and threw it at the boy's jacket.

"Isn't it because you have too many live-in partners? One apartment isn't enough!"

"..." Matsueda Jun could only pick up the remaining snow that hadn't slipped off his arm and watch it melt in his warm palm.

Mochizuki is right; the root of the problem lies with him.

After two days of communication in the group, the girls have reached a preliminary consensus on renting a house.

Two three-bedroom apartments are a feasible option—Matsueda Jun has his own bedroom in both apartments, so neither side will be neglected. Each girl has her own room, and the extra bedroom can be used for storage or "for emergencies".

As for specific conditions, Mochizuki and Kurusu didn't have many requirements, only saying that the space shouldn't be too small.

—Because Mochizuki Haruka had already chosen the Mochizuki family home by the Meguro River, and after coming to Sugiyo, she also had an artist apartment assigned by the company.

For them, the room in the rented house wasn't that important; it was just a place where they could be intimate with Songzhi.

Of course, Tomatsu Tomoka was happy to see this situation, so the girls' communication about renting a place was relatively harmonious and pleasant.

Even so, considering their respective location requirements, finding a place to live is still not easy... Jun Matsueda looked at the increasing number of school uniform-clad figures on the road and the gate of Haneoka High School not far away.

However, there is still plenty of time, so it's okay to take your time looking.

Walking into the school with Mochizuki after a long absence, the snow on the main road had already been cleared, and the wet, smooth paving stones reflected the "Caution: Slippery" sign. The students seemed to be walking more cautiously, but that did not diminish their enthusiasm.

After greeting the classmates they met along the way, the boys and girls changed into indoor shoes at the entrance of the teaching building and walked up to the dry ground on the fourth floor.

The corridor with only two classrooms still seemed less lively than downstairs, but that didn't stop the lively atmosphere that greeted them as they pushed open the back door of the classroom—

"Good morning, Jun-kun~" Tomatsu Yuka, who was sitting in the middle of the back row, greeted them first.

"Good luck on your last semester!"

After three years and two classroom changes, her smile remained bright and pure, unshaken by anything external—as if she had found the most stable anchor point in her campus life, and the sense of unfamiliarity upon returning to school had completely disappeared. Jun Matsue smiled and nodded at her.

Let's cheer each other on.

Mochizuki Haruka, standing to the side, let out a soft "tsk" and turned her smiling face away.

"Mochizuki-kun too~"

"Thank you." There was little gratitude on the aloof young lady's face as she walked straight to the seat by the window, leaving Tomatsu Yuka with an arrogant back view.

"I thought she wouldn't reply to me." The girl smiled.

“There’s nothing I can do.” Jun Matsueda put his schoolbag down on the seat between the two of them. “After all, Mochizuki has never been a bad kid.”

The three most authoritative figures in the back row of the classroom dispersed, and Mizushima Miya, who was sitting in the front, turned around to join the conversation.

"This must be our shortest semester ever, right? We only have ten days of classes before the common exam!"

"But you can't relax after the exams," Tomatsu Tomohana replied with a smile. "After the common exams, we still have to prepare for the school's internal exams."

"That's true..." The girl, who had been relaxed, began to look troubled again.

"I'm afraid that I'll become complacent after the general exams are over, which will affect my performance in the school exams."

"Then come back to school for classes after the exam," Jun Matsue said, standing up and walking towards the podium with the papers in his hand.

"Please hand in the survey form we sent out before the holiday."

A few minutes later, the boy walked out of the classroom with a stack of forms and headed downstairs to the teachers' office.

The unheated corridor echoed with his own footsteps and those of someone in the distance behind him, sounding quiet and desolate—but this atmosphere only lasted until the boy stepped into the stairwell.

"Pine branch——"

The call from behind was followed by hurried footsteps. Jun Matsueda turned around and saw Natsumi Imokawa running towards him with a pile of papers in her arms.

"Happy new semester!" The girl stopped in front of him and greeted him, slightly out of breath.

"Songzhi seems to be later than usual today? I just went to Class 6 and didn't see you."

"Because there was snow on the road, I walked here." The boy waved the form in his hand and looked at the similar paper in her arms.

"Are you going to hand in a survey form too? Isn't that the class monitor's job?"

"Because I'm relatively free right now, the class monitor asked me for help." Natsumi Imokawa smiled happily. "She's late today too."

"..." Jun Matsue tilted his head and glanced at the corridor behind the girl.

"Was it one of those classmates who disliked you before who egged you on?"

"How could that be!" Natsumi Imokawa retorted, "I was the one who suggested it!"

"Because that way we can encounter pine branches!"

"..." It seems there's no need to ask "Do you want me to take it with you?" Matsueda Jun started walking.

"Let's go then."

As the boy entered the stairwell, he soon heard something dangling beside him, like a pendant. He looked over and saw that it was the girl's mini camera hanging on her wrist—the yellow, vertically striped body looked like a dangling question mark, reminding Jun Matsue of the girl's radiant smile at sunset that day.

"Imokawa is wearing it today too."

“Yeah~” Noticing his gaze, Imokawa Natsumi raised her hand and waved it.

"We agreed to take six thousand photos, so how can I not bring them with me!"

"..." The boy looked at her camera carefully.

The keychain that came with it was removed, and the mini camera was hung on the woven bracelet on the girl's wrist. The bright yellow body of the camera set off the healthy pink of her skin—compared to the cold white snow outside the window, it was like a warm and gentle jade.

Jun Matsue looked away and turned the corner on the stairs with the girl. The noise from the stairwell surged in as everyone pushed and shoved each other.

"So how many photos have you taken so far?" he asked casually.

"Hmm." Natsumi Imokawa reached into her pocket.

"I wrote it down on my phone, but I didn't bring it with me..."

“There should be…” she thought to herself, staring at the ceiling of the corridor.

"There are probably a couple hundred of them?"

"That's quite a lot." The boy's words were tinged with surprise; Imokawa had only had the camera for about two weeks.

"But we're still a long way from our goal of six thousand."

"Hmm!" Natsumi Imokawa turned her head and blinked.

"It's okay, university lasts four years, which is longer than high school!"

Jun Matsue laughed, walked to the front of the teachers' office, and reached out to close the door.

"Can my tiny mini camera satisfy the future great director, Imokawa?"

"Definitely!" the girl replied confidently.

"Even if this camera is no longer interesting, it's still fun to use it to photograph pine branches!"

"..." Jun Matsuoka's smile faded slightly.

Just as one plus one equals two, and two iron balls fall at the same time, Imokawa firmly believed that during their four years of university, they would still stay in touch, and their connection would become even closer.

The thought of how her innocent brows would furrow and how heartbroken her beautiful face would be if he rejected her made the boy feel a pang of pain in his heart.

It's like abandoning an innocent puppy that has already recognized you as its master—even the most hard-hearted person would be moved by it.

Jun Matsueda shifted his attention to other thoughts—

Speaking of which, shouldn't we take more photos of the welfare home and the director, Grandma, while we still have time to make a record of it?

The most suitable person seems to be right beside him...

His thoughts circled back to the girl who had secretly taken a picture of him. Matsueda Jun shook his head and looked at her.

"Anyway... for the sake of the 6,000 photos in college, let's focus on my exams first."

Chapter 853 Even Matsueda Jun had to admit his womanizing ways

The second day of school, Friday.

As if to fill the gaps in the melting white, the Tokyo sky began to snow again as the morning sunlight faded slightly.

So at noon today, there were far fewer customers in the Haneoka High School cafeteria. However, not everyone stayed in the classroom; instead, they went to the corridors and outside to watch the snow.

Carrying lunch for two, Jun Matsue walked out of the cafeteria, shrinking his neck to block the chill seeping into his coat collar.

"Why isn't the pine branch moving?" Ken Sakamuro, who had left with him, turned around. "Aren't you going back to the classroom?"

"You go back first," the boy waved his hand. "I have something to do."

"Then I won't go back to class. I'll go downstairs and chat with my friends." The tall, brown-skinned physical education student turned and walked towards the teaching building.

"Otherwise, when Tomatsu asks me where you went later, I won't know how to answer..."

Jun Matsue laughed, "You can just tell her I have something to do."

He watched Ken Sakamuro walk away.

There were quite a few people on the main road, but none of them seemed to be in the cafeteria. The girls were holding their phones, looking up at the falling snowflakes and shouting excitedly. Matsueda Jun ignored them and walked straight towards the path leading to the sports field behind the gymnasium, disappearing from the sight of passersby.

All physical education classes were canceled due to snow, and the sports field was deserted. The boy took out his phone, glanced at the message he had just sent to his senior, but his mind was elsewhere—

I don't think I ran into Imogawa in the cafeteria just now.

Logically speaking, Imokawa, like him and Sakamuro Ken, was one of those people who went to the cafeteria to eat regardless of the weather—could it be that he, like those girls, went out to take pictures of the snow?

I'll ask her after the video call with my senior.

Jun Matsueda adjusted his expression while looking at the black phone screen, then started a video call—

The chat window suddenly enlarged, taking up the entire screen, and a girl's bright and gentle face popped up, making him blink.

"Good afternoon, senior." The boy greeted her in a steady tone, listening to the noisy footsteps and the sound of dishes around her.

"Are you in the cafeteria?"

"Good afternoon~" Yami Maki smiled at him. "Yes, I just finished lunch."

"Isn't Kokoro with you?"

"Haha..." The girl's smile was somewhat awkward, her gaze glancing towards the screen—