Am I being simulated by their love affair?

Jun Matsueda could hear the sound of cars starting up, and buses passing by outside the window, making the whole room bright and dark, like a slide show.

Even before the girl opened her mouth, her eyes were enough to express a lot.

"Matsueda-san." This was how she first addressed Matsueda Jun, and it also reflected their true relationship.

After all, "Chunjun" is just the girl's wishful thinking.

"Just now, when I was outside the door, I was thinking about the time I spent with you. Suddenly, I realized that we have only known each other for five months."

Tomatsu Tomoka lowered her head and counted on her fingers.

"School started on April 9th, and that was when I first met you. Then a week later there was the class committee election. Because of you, I had the urge to become vice-class monitor."

"Then there were the happiest two months of my junior high school life. Our relationship gradually deepened, and it was during this time that the dating simulation system found me."

"After the simulation, I was delighted. I felt like I had found the answer to this unspoken feeling in my heart, and I decided to put it into practice."

The girl's tone turned bitter.

"Ever since the first grade... Ever since the first grade, my patience has actually become very low, so after seeing our future together, I became impatient for success."

"Looking at your impassive face, I decided to step into the abyss. At that time, I believed that as long as I wasn't discovered, there would be no problem. Hadn't the simulation proved that we would eventually belong to each other?"

"If I could travel back in time, I might kill my past self." The girl smiled.

"If I had to choose now, I would rather spend three years of high school, or even longer, to open your heart than learn about that happy future so early."

"Although there's no point in saying this now."

The girl clutched the hem of her skirt with both hands, took a deep breath, and smiled sadly at Matsueda Jun.

"Matsueda-san, do you remember that day? The day we talked on the rooftop, the day you said you wouldn't forgive me?"

"June 17th." Of course he remembered.

"I'm very grateful to Matsueda-san for exposing my selfishness and narrow-mindedness that day. I thought I was a girl willing to give everything for love, but in fact I was just a petty person who only cared about myself."

"June 17th, I will never forget this day. After this, I began a two-month struggle that lasted until today."

"So much can happen in five months. I feel like a character in some 8 o'clock melodrama."

The girl lifted her legs and stamped her feet, as if she was tired from standing for too long.

"I've said so much, but it's actually because I'm nervous. I thought I wouldn't be nervous. Haven't I told you many times that I like you?"

"But I just realized that even when Tomatsu Tomoka's relationship turned into a mess, she never formally confessed her feelings to Matsueda Jun."

“So I want to make up for this regret.”

The girl walked up to Matsueda Jun again, stretched out her hands, and wanted to hold her lover's cheeks.

But thinking that Jun Matsueda might suspect that she was using the opportunity of physical contact to check her favorability, the girl lowered her raised hands again.

Tomatsu Tomoka's eyes were already filled with tears, but she still smiled happily at him.

"Matsueda Jun, I like you, a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love."

"This is the only thing I have never regretted."

Jun Matsueda could see nothing in her eyes except his own figure.

Tomatsu Tomoka took a few steps back, and the two kept a distance like strangers.

"Why did I fall in love with you? I've asked myself this question countless times in the past few months."

"Do I like your appearance? Do I like your contradictions? Do I like that you can do everything and always surprise me?"

"Is it because when we make mistakes in class activities, you apologize to the teacher before I do?"

"Is it because no matter the sunshine or the wind and rain outside, you have never exposed your vulnerability?"

"Is it because you subconsciously stood in front of me when someone attacked me, and carried me to the infirmary after I was slapped?"

"I thought and thought, but I couldn't figure it out. Then I stopped thinking about it."

"The more time I spend thinking about this kind of thing, the less time I have to like Matsueda-san."

"Everyone always says that you need a specific reason to like someone."

"At what moment, at what place, what happened, what did he do, that made you fall in love with him?"

Tomatsu Tomoka shook her head, and her tears splashed onto the ground.

"No, no."

"Tomoka Tomatsu met Jun Matsueda. She thought he was a nice guy and was very attractive to her."

"If Tomatsu Tomoka were to choose a boyfriend from all the boys she's ever met, she would choose Matsueda Jun."

"When Tomatsu Tomoka is old and has met countless men in her life, and she wants to choose a man to marry, have children with, and spend her life with, she will choose Matsueda Jun."

"This is what Tomatsu Tomoka likes."

"Matsueda-san, what do you think?"

Tomatsu Tomoka no longer lowered her head. She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand and looked at the boy in front of her.

Jun Matsueda walked towards her, Tomatsu Touka closed her eyes, and her heartbeat began to accelerate.

Whether it was a kiss or a slap, she was willing.

However, Jun Matsueda just walked past her and went to the window.

The curtains were drawn, blocking the prying eyes of the girl hiding in the distance, and the room fell into darkness. Matsueda Jun returned to the girl, a little closer than before.

There were sounds of students from other schools laughing and playing in the corridor, but the preparation room was as silent as a morgue.

"I've been waiting for you to confess to me."

"So I can formally reject you."

As expected... Tomatsu Tomoka smiled self-deprecatingly. When she heard this, she felt all the strength she had lost and fell to the ground.

Jun Matsueda could not see the girl's movements, he could only hear her voice.

If I can't see her tears and her weak posture, I won't feel soft-hearted.

"I used to like you."

Tomatsu Tomoka looked up at him.

"I later thought that it might not be entirely your fault that our relationship has become what it is now."

"Maybe if I were more honest about my feelings, we could become intimate sooner and move on to the next stage."

"Maybe without a system, you wouldn't be so extreme. We can take it slow and eventually have a relationship that will take us from campus to society."

"But there aren't so many ifs. It's already happened." Matsueda Jun's tone was also somewhat complicated and helpless.

What if there was no system?

The two of them had this thought at the same time.

"There's no way around it. Our lives and our relationships have been completely changed by the system."

"You are now better, more real, and more shining than ever before."

Jun Matsueda still remembers how the girl stole everyone's attention on the stage.

"The sad thing is, now that you're standing before me, among all the happy, heartwarming fragments of my memories, the biggest piece is still your terrible actions."

"If I could, I would also like to forget it like a fool. That way my life would be simpler and happier. What's wrong with that?"

"But I can't do it."

When he said this, Jun Matsueda's tone had become exactly the same as usual.

"So I can only reject other girls like I did. Thank you for your love."

"But it's better not to like it anymore, because I might never forget it in my life."

Jun Matsueda could hear Tomatsu Tomoka's subtle movements, and the girl was crying silently in the dark.

I heard that when you are extremely sad, your crying becomes silent.

Jun Matsueda stood in the darkness, silently waiting for the girl's burning sadness to cool down.

When she walked out of the preparation room, Tomatsu Tomoka was still in tears, but because the wind band had to go back to school, she had no choice but to leave like this.

This time, Jun Matsueda did not carry her on his back, because he had to be a little cruel to make the girl let go as soon as possible.

But when the sunlight shone on the girl's tear-stained face, Matsueda Jun's heart still skipped a beat.

This is the girl he once liked.

Jun Matsueda walked behind Tomoka Tomatsu to prevent her from suddenly disappearing.

Reporters who were still staying in the venue stopped the girl and she identified the school emblem on her uniform.

"You're a student at Hanaoka High School, right? Are you crying so hard because you're happy to have made it to the national tournament?"

Tomatsu Tomoka shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes. "I confessed to the boy I liked, but he rejected me."

Jun Matsueda stepped forward and sent the reporter away, and the two walked towards the school bus.

Just as they were about to see the bus going up the mountain to meet Maki's back, Matsueda Jun's cell phone rang and he answered it.

"Hello, this is Songzhi."

"..."

All you can hear on the other end is the "beep-beep" sound of the instrument.

"Hey?"

He checked his phone, it was an unfamiliar number.

"Matsueda." Mochizuki Haruka's voice came over, her tone was hollow and cold, making the tiny hairs on Matsueda Jun's ears stand up.

"Auntie is in a coma."

Mochizuki Haruka hung up the phone.

Jun Matsueda stopped, phone still to his ear, and looked up at the sky.

The sun was already setting near the horizon, and the streetlights hadn't yet come on. The surrounding trees and buildings had become dim silhouettes, with only the indistinct sunset in the distance feebly painting a small patch of sky a final, blood-pink hue.

Tomatsu Tomoka turned around to look at him, and further away was Yamami Maki who got off the bus, looking at the two of them worriedly.

At the Kyorin University School of Medicine Hospital in Mitaka City, Mochizuki Haruka sat alone outside the emergency room, leaning against the cold and smooth wall, his hands hanging limply as he looked at Mochizuki Hana lying on the hospital bed.

It is now 8:24 PM on August 17th, the last day before the start of the second semester at Mitaka City's Hayao High School.

Summer is over.

They will all remember this day, when a girl's love affair failed and a girl's only relative was hospitalized.

The first stage of Jun Matsueda's life ends today. As the story of his long life begins, the girls will drag him into the mire of life, making his loneliness even darker.

His first three years with them began.

(End of Volume 1)

Chapter 66: Sleeping Beauty

After the last class in the afternoon, the classroom immediately became noisy.

Everyone was packing up their things, with clubs and private schools accounting for half of their destinations, and only a few were heading home.

The hot girl from Class 1, Rion, walked in from the back door of the classroom, came to the seat where Jun Matsueda was sitting, squatted down and looked at Jun Matsueda sitting there.

"Is there any news about Matsueda-chan? She hasn't come to class in a week. We tried to contact her but she didn't respond..."

Liyin didn't say anything else, the worry on her face evident. She nervously twirled the hair tie on her wrist. She and Mochizuki Haruka had bought it together; hers was pink, and Mochizuki's was black and white with polka dots.

Matsueda Jun didn't ask why she came to him. He put the textbook into his schoolbag and said, "There's nothing wrong with Mochizuki Haruka. She just has some family matters. She will come to school in a while."

"Okay, thank you Songeda-kun!" The girl stood up and reported the situation to a group of students hiding outside the back door.

The seats had not been changed yet, and Mizushima Miya was still sitting to the right of Matsueda Jun, writing furiously in her exercise book. She only looked up when Matsueda Jun walked out the back door with his schoolbag.

Mizushima Miya put down his pen, sighed, looked at the blackboard at the front of the classroom, then turned his head to look at the seats across the row to his left. The girl had not left yet.

"Youhua, are you going to stay depressed like this forever?"

Tomatsu Tomoka sat in her seat, looking down at the textbook that had just been distributed. She looked paler than before the holiday, and her cheeks had an unhealthy blush.

"Besides the confession, what else happened between you and Songeda?"