Am I being simulated by their love affair.

Chapter 307 Living Freely Under the Spotlight
The agent drove the two back to Mitaka, but the car didn't go directly to the apartment building; instead, it stopped on the side of the road.

Yosei Kurusu has sharp eyes; she spotted the ramen stall from afar and called to Jun Matsueda to come down and eat ramen together.

After each performance, she had to eat something; this seemed to have become a habit for Yosuke Kurusu. The girl stood in front of the simple ramen cart, watching Jun Matsueda talking to the woman in the cart by the roadside.

The car started again, and the girl put her hands to her lips, making a megaphone shape, "Sister, won't you eat a bowl of ramen with me before you go?"

"What time is it?" The woman glared at her irritably. "I have my own things to do too!"

The busy cars sped away, taking some of the summer night's heat with them. It wasn't the hottest time yet, and feeling the night breeze by the roadside made one crave a bowl of noodle soup to warm up.

The ramen stall only offered two choices: chashu ramen and regular ramen. Looking at the tempting chashu on the counter, the girl didn't hesitate to ask for it.

"Char siu ramen! Double char siu, thank you, grandma~".

The elderly woman with the headscarf nodded; many of the street stalls in Japan were run by elderly people. Lai Qiyang turned around, "What would you like to eat, Songzhi?"

Jun Matsueda glanced at the small whiteboard standing up in the car. "Regular ramen, please, with an egg."

"Ramen with an egg~" The girl turned around and repeated the boy's words, it seemed that the evening's program hadn't drained her energy much.

The ramen was served quickly, and the two sat on the wooden table behind the cart to eat. Jun Matsue watched the cut hard-boiled egg float in the broth, then picked up some seaweed and bamboo shoots and put them in his mouth along with the ramen.

"Hmm, not bad."

The girl happily chewed on the tender char siu, then picked up the red noodle bowl and took a sip of the soup. "Delicious!"

"I used to never add chashu to my ramen at the stall," Yosei Kurusu sighed, gazing at the night sky. "Now I'm living the good life of double chashu!"

At that time, she was working part-time at a convenience store to pay for her makeup and costumes for the performance, and she and Songzhi bought vegetables nearing their expiration date from the supermarket.

"Once what you said on the show today gets out, you might not be able to get char siu again?"

"There's nothing we can do about it." The girl picked up a piece of char siu and put it in the boy's bowl. "Let Songzhi try some too~"

"I went through so much to debut as an idol, not to tell a lie on stage."

Jun Matsue paused for a moment. He was just sitting at a roadside stall eating noodles, so why could this guy act so cool?
"What I want people to like is not the persona I wear, the one with superb acting skills, but the most authentic Yosei Kurusu."

"Although what I said was partly to cater to the atmosphere of the show, at least those words were my true feelings."

Yosei Kurusu never imagined what she would be like before her debut. Just like what she said to the girls at Shinjuku Gyoen before, would Yosei Kurusu still be Yosei Kurusu if she didn't become an idol?
The girl laughed, her full lips glistening with the oil from the noodle soup under the streetlights.

"If you become an idol wearing a mask, you can't enjoy this delicious char siu with a clear conscience~"

Matsueda Jun sighed. This guy could be so willful sometimes. He took a bite of the char siu the girl had given him, and it did taste pretty good.

"It's very dangerous for you to live like this in the entertainment industry."

"Sometimes people wear masks just to protect themselves. If they don't face the audience and the camera with the image they portray, they will only get more pressure and trouble."

Yosei Kurusu blinked. "But that's not what Matsueda wanted to say to me, is it?"

"You just said it yourself in the car, you said you would support me, right?"

"Who told me to become someone's fan?" He swallowed the last bite of char siu. "Anyway, I've already warned you, so I can eat this char siu with a clear conscience."

"You can eat as many pine branches as you want!"

The girl looked at Jun Matsueda with a smile. She preferred the moment of eating noodles slowly with him on a secluded street to participating in such sensational entertainment programs to promote herself.

To make those moments more frequent, she needs to work even harder—only artists standing at the pinnacle of Tokyo have the absolute authority to speak their minds. By then, will Matsueda also become her number one fan, with only her in his heart?

"Speaking of which, Pine Branch, when will you come of age?"

"What are you doing?" The boy asked, a hint of wariness in his eyes as he ate his noodles.

"I just feel that at times like this, a drink is essential for a perfect moment~"

However, the simple ramen stall did not offer drinks. After finishing their ramen, the two returned the bowls and walked for more than ten minutes back to their apartment, which was lit by a few lights.

"So tired—I want to sleep—" The girl slumped into the sofa.

“I think you’re too full and sleepy.” Jun Matsue took out his phone. He hadn’t even had a chance to look at his phone because Yosuke Kishi had been chatting with him the whole way.

"I want to take a bath~ Matsue, can you go and run the water for me?" Yosei Kurusu groaned on the sofa.

"For the sake of the char siu." Jun Matsue walked into the bathroom, filling the bathtub with water while checking his messages.

The rabbit and cat avatars in the chat list had already started flashing, so he clicked on them to take a look.

Tomatsu asked tactfully, "How did you feel tonight, Matsueda? Was the recording of the show interesting?"

Mochizuki Haruka was much more direct, "Did you go back to your apartment with that guy?"

After replying to the message, the bathtub was almost empty. He returned to the living room and said, "Go take a bath quickly, the water will get cold soon."

Yosei Kurusu hummed a song as she walked into the bathroom. Jun Matsueda took her place and lay down on the sofa. He closed his eyes and went through all of the girl's remarks from the show that evening in his mind.

"As long as they don't edit out of context, there shouldn't be any problems. The topic itself is also quite interesting, and the production team shouldn't do something so offensive."

He then searched for reviews of past episodes on his phone and found no particularly serious public opinion storms, so it seems the production team was aware of the situation.

Feeling relieved for now, Jun Matsue decided to go to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and finish the last bit of tea leaves that his manager had given him.

As he waited for the aroma of the tea to infuse into the water, his phone vibrated again; it was a message from Yamami Maki.

"The proposal for the ice cream vending machine has been revised. Would you like to take a look, Pineapple?"

The girl's voice floated in the air along with the aroma of tea, making it impossible for anyone to refuse.

"Then I'll have to trouble you, senior." Jun Matsue walked into the bedroom with a teacup in his hand.

Yosei Kurusu groaned contentedly in the warm water, while the girl reached out and picked up the lit-up cell phone next to the bathtub.

"Yoshi-neechan came to the practice room, why didn't she look for me!" Miyamura Aya sent a message.

"Sorry~ It just so happens that our times are different. I really wanted to see Aya-chan's band too~"

The girl immediately sent a photo of girls carrying musical instruments and walking towards the subway station, looking like they had just finished practicing.

"So youthful!" Yosei Kurusu replied, clicking on the picture to take a closer look.

"Huh?" She counted the photos and found only two girls carrying musical instruments. Including Aya, who took the photo, and Matsue, who was absent, there were four people in total.

In the practice room group photo that Songzhi showed her back then, there seemed to be five people, right?

(End of this chapter)