Am I being simulated by their love affair.

Chapter 227 Her Home, Her Space, Her Face
Jun Matsueda followed the girl into the residential building.

This building doesn’t look new, but it’s better than Jun Matsueda’s apartment, and it does have an elevator.

"By the way, why did Imokawa come to study at Haneoka?" Jun Matsueda suddenly thought of this question in the elevator.

"Because Haneoka is the best school I can get into." The girl hugged the bag containing the DVD case to her chest and looked at him with a puzzled expression.

"Isn't the deviation value in Hanaoka around 69 or 70? Even if it's a little further from home, it's worth it."

"Never mind, I didn't ask." Jun Matsue almost forgot that most people choose schools based on their grades, unlike him who only chose schools around Mitaka for convenience.

"The atmosphere in Yugaoka is pretty good, and the atmosphere of school club activities is pretty good."

The elevator stopped on the eleventh floor, and the girl walked out of the elevator holding a bag. Jun Matsueda looked at the corridor in front of him. The distance between the doors was larger than the housing complex where he lived. It was obvious that the apartment was not cheap.

"Ah, and Haneda is in Mitaka, where there's the Ghibli Museum that I love!" Natsumi Imokawa took him to the end of the corridor, "I loved Ghibli movies when I was a kid!"

The girl stood in front of the metal gate and took out the key from her breast pocket with difficulty. Matsueda Jun waited outside the door for two seconds before going in.

"It's so dark." His first thought was very simple and unpretentious. The curtains in the room were all drawn, and not a single ray of light could see through. Only the light from outside the door shone through the floor onto a large pile of papers on the table.

"Oh, sorry." Although she didn't know why, the girl apologized subconsciously. "Because many things in the house can't be exposed to light for a long time, the curtains are usually drawn."

A soft "click" sound came from somewhere, and Natsumi Imokawa turned on the light, and the room became brighter. The light in the room was very soft, illuminating only the area that originally belonged to the restaurant.

On the long table was a laptop computer, which looked like a model from a few years ago. Surrounding it were various high and low tables, on which were placed various pens, papers, camera lenses, a miniature human model with movable joints, a printer, and many notebooks bound with printing paper.

Matsueda Jun turned around and looked around. The first thing he saw wasn't the white walls, but wooden bookshelves, piled high with the packaging of various books and DVDs, making the originally spacious space seem smaller. Across from the computer hung a large whiteboard, covered in the remnants of four-frame comic-book graffiti, and covered in numerous photos and drawing papers. He even spotted a few of his own photos.

"These are things left over from my father's studio. This was his former workspace, and he would come back to take a look occasionally."

Natsumi Imokawa didn't know where she put the bag in her hand. She had taken off her sweater jacket, and her shirt was bulging. The girl lowered her head and twisted her hands awkwardly in front of her.

This was the first time she had someone come home.

"It feels quite good. It's the director's space I imagined. I just don't know where to sit." Jun Matsueda walked around the long table and looked at the scattered papers on the table.

"Any chair!" The girl pushed the sofa chair next to him like an attentive dog. "The studio's old rule was that you couldn't put anything on the chairs, so the chairs are all safe!"

As if listening to some kind of studio ghost story, Jun Matsue sat in a chair, looking at the things in front of him: a stack of papers nailed together, with a series of simple line drawings on them, which looked like a fight.

"Ah, that's the storyboard for Dad's abandoned project. He wanted to make an action movie, the kind where every knife cuts and blood is visible."

"..." Jun Matsue looked at the two stick figures and twitching red lines on the paper, "I can feel it, the battle must have been quite intense."

"No, no, no!" The girl leaned over and laid her upper body on the table, looking at the painting in front of him. Matsueda Jun felt the back of his hand being pressed by something extremely soft.

He silently pulled out his left hand from the table, and there seemed to be an ambiguous touch left.

"This scene is the protagonists eating French fries in a burger shop, and the ketchup spilled."

"Weren't we supposed to be watching a movie?" Jun Matsueda changed the subject; this was the reason the girl had invited him to her house. It was only because Natsumi Imokawa was the harmless type; if it had been Haruka Mochizuki or Tomoka Tomatsu who had said it, he would absolutely not have agreed to the invitation.

"Hmm, I need to think about it." Natsumi Imokawa got up from the table, her flattened flesh regaining its plump and beautiful shape. She walked to the bookshelf, agonizing over a pile of CDs.

"What kind of movies does Songeda like to watch?"

"It's all right." Matsueda Jun thought of someone waiting for him at home. "Just don't take too long."

"How about this one?" The girl pulled out a CD with a cover that showed a robot and a standing and walking puppy.

"Robot Dreams".

"That's it."

Natsumi Imokawa turned on the light in the living room again, and the coat and underwear on the sofa appeared from the darkness.

The girl remained still for two seconds, then climbed onto the sofa as quickly as possible, gathered all her clothes in her arms, and ran towards her room.

When she returned to the living room, Jun Matsueda was already sitting on the sofa as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't seen anything.

So Natsumi Imokawa pretended nothing happened and put the CD into the machine under the TV.

However, her clumsy movements, her red earlobes and the fact that she had to insert the disc twice revealed the girl's inner embarrassment.

The moment the TV screen lit up, the girl hurriedly walked around the coffee table, returned to the sofa, and sat next to Matsueda Jun.

Jun Matsueda suddenly felt a little dazed. He remembered the night when he watched TV series with Kurusu Yoshi, and the afternoon when he watched a movie with Mochizuki Haruka in an empty classroom at school.

Spending time like this on the sofa with others seemed to have become his daily routine.

The one-hour-and-forty-minute animated film, devoid of dialogue, evokes a sense of cramped security in the darkened living room. The two people sitting on the sofa breathe softly, and any slight movement from one person is felt through the surface of the sofa by the other, as if their bodies are connected by some invisible medium.

It's just a story about a robot and a dog meeting, a story about two lonely beings accompanying each other and eventually leaving.

The film ended, and Jun Matsueda looked at the girl next to him. It was not the first time that Natsumi Imokawa had seen her, but she still fluttered her eyelashes and shed tears quietly.

The light from the TV hit her face. The girl's eyes were focused, with a hint of sadness on her face, but also seemed to be feeling genuine joy because she had seen a good movie.

Natsumi Imokawa turned her head, her eyes soaked in tears were exceptionally clear, becoming the only focus in the dark space.

"Pine Branch. The movie is really good!"

Jun Matsueda laughed as he listened to the girl's childish mumbling.

"What are you laughing at!" Natsumi Imokawa reached out and pushed him to express his dissatisfaction.

"Nothing, it's really beautiful."

(End of this chapter)