Am I being simulated by their love affair.

Chapter 318 The Sorrow of Seventeen-Year-Old Ice Cream
"Isn't the sports meet considered a major event for the news department?"

In the empty clubroom, Natsumi Imokawa looked up from the documents in front of her and looked at the boy next to her.

"That's why I'm here." Jun Matsueda looked at the list of news department members in his hand.

The press department has two main tasks during the sports meet: first, to assist the understaffed photography department in taking photos on-site; and second, to record the events afterwards, as reports are definitely required for such large-scale events.

The list of members he had was given to him by Natsumi Imokawa, and it included her notes—each person's strengths, personality traits, and so on. The handwriting was round and cute, making it seem even more girlish than the person herself.

"Isn't this done quite well?" Jun Matsue said in an appreciative tone. "It's arranged according to your understanding. Then we can ask the second-year students to help look after it."

"Is that so?" The girl was pleased with his praise, and the invisible tail behind her began to wag. "I feel more at ease knowing that Songzhi has seen it."

“No problem.” Jun Matsueda, who was leaning back in his chair, sat up and looked at Natsumi Imokawa’s face. He wanted to see if the girl had dark circles under her eyes.

"Are you managing all this? You're juggling club activities, studies, filming, and learning new skills."

After being stared at for a few seconds, the girl's face quickly turned red. She leaned back slightly, trying to get closer to the air vent to cool herself down.

"Is it alright?" Natsumi Imokawa thought seriously. "There wasn't much homework to begin with, and club activities can also help me accumulate material for the future. My main task is still to learn about film."

"However, with my dad's guidance and occasional chats with the former director, things went relatively smoothly."

The boy nodded. "Don't overwork yourself, okay? You still need to relax a bit."

“I am relaxing.” The girl looked at him, puzzled. “Watching movies is relaxing, and filming a band is relaxing too, right?”

For Natsumi Imokawa, carrying a camera has never been a burden.

After leaving the newsroom, Jun Matsueda walked to the other side of the corridor, which led to the student council office.

The student union office and the news department office are always on the same floor, but they are at opposite ends of the corridor, so people on both sides rarely see each other – people usually go straight downstairs after leaving their rooms.

Of course, if the person going out waits intentionally, the result is different—he walks to the stairwell and meets the girl standing behind the corner of the wall.

"Hello, Matsueda-kun~ It's hot today too~" Yamami Maki said, holding two ice cream cones and mimicking a boy holding drumsticks.

"Didn't I say that you could just stay in the office, senior?" Jun Matsueda looked at the girl in front of him helplessly. "You can wait for my message before you come out."

"It's okay~" the senior shook her head, "We can use this time to buy ice cream!"

The two ice cream cones in her hand were a matcha cone and a chocolate cone.

"Which one would you like, Matsueda-kun?" The girl waved the ice cream in her hand.

“Matcha,” Jun Matsueda said without hesitation. “She looks more like an upperclassman.”

"Huh?" Yami Maki blinked, her cheeks flushing red. "How could you say something like that, Matsueda-san?"

"I'm just telling the truth." Jun Matsueda unwrapped the matcha-colored packaging paper.

"My senior always seems to have something green in her clothes—a forest green dress, light green sandals, or a matcha-colored hair clip."

The girl had a simple green bow hair clip pinned to her jet-black hair.

"Then I'm at a disadvantage, aren't I?" The girl pouted slightly, looking at the dark blue wrapper with a chocolate pattern in her hand.

"This doesn't seem like Matsueda-kun at all." "So, does senpai want to eat me up too?"

The girl's face flushed again, and the fine beads of sweat on her neck created a unique allure that only appears in summer.

Jun Matsue stopped talking and just ate his ice cream cone, looking out at the sky with his senior. The layers of white clouds were high and far, like milk ice cream floating in the air.

"I'm enjoying looking at the sky above the school more and more." Yami Maki stuck out her tongue, licking her chocolate ice cream little by little, and looked into the distance with satisfaction.

"Whether it's a magnificent sunset, gloomy dark clouds, or the clear blue sky and white clouds right now, sitting in the classroom and looking at them always makes me feel a bit better."

"While they may be beautiful in other places, they always lack this special sense of joy."

Jun Matsue pondered his senior's confession seriously, "Perhaps in a well-ordered place like school, the vast, free sky above one's head can become a source of comfort?"

"That makes sense." The girl nodded with a smile.

"I can't analyze things as rationally as Matsueda-san; I just have a vague feeling about it."

"This seems to be my youth."

She waved the now rounded ice cream in her hand. "The ice cream vending machine at school, it says 'seventeen ice' on it, did you see it, Matsueda-san?"

Jun Matsue rummaged through his memory, "It seems to be a brand under Glico?"

This ice cream vending machine is commonly seen in Tokyo; it has a red "I7" logo that looks a bit like the number 17.

"Hmm." The girl nodded. "If this were at school, wouldn't it be a lot like 'seventeen-year-old ice cream'? That's what everyone says."

"Hearing such words suddenly reminds me that I am already an eighteen-year-old adult."

Seventeen-year-old ice cream, a fleeting sweetness and coolness, seems to melt away in the memories of summer, a symbol of youth.

Jun Matsue blinked. No matter how mature her senior was, she was still just a teenage girl who would feel sentimental about graduation.

"Eighteen years old doesn't make you an adult." He looked at the girl next to him and said, "Eighteen-year-olds can't even go to convenience stores to buy cigarettes or alcohol."

"The senior's youth has just begun - university is much freer than high school, so free that many people become decadent and indulgent."

"You can plan your own trip, fly from Hokkaido to Kagoshima, then take a train from Osaka to Nagoya, eat whatever you want, and it's okay to eat five meals a day."

"You can stay out all night, and after the show, everyone can have a cocktail that's just the right amount of intoxication. Even if you walk on the street late at night, you won't be questioned by the police."

"In short, please relax and look forward to it."

"The sky I looked up at when I was twenty will definitely be more memorable than the sky I see now."

Looking at the boy beside her, Yamami Maki thought that if the future was truly more beautiful and memorable than the present, it would be because Matsueda-kun was by her side.

The time it takes to eat an ice cream, the sorrow of eighteen years old—sentimental, fleeting, and sudden without reason, perhaps difficult for one person to resolve.

Fortunately, she wasn't alone.

　Why is everyone shouting "Explode! Explode! Explode!"? The senior just sneaked onto the high ground, let her have some fun!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)