Am I being simulated by their love affair.

Chapter 361 Jun Matsueda's Truth
"Matsue, you're not in a relationship, are you?"

The moment the girl asked the question, many solutions flashed through Jun Matsue's mind, and he finally chose the most commonly used and practical one.

Play dumb.

"What are you talking about?" He finally picked up the chicken leg cutlet. "Dating? Who would I date?"

"Matsueda's pretending to be stupid!" Kurusu Yosei's face suddenly loomed close to his. "That wink you gave before you spoke just now, it was obvious you were trying to lie!"

"Hey, Jun Matsue, you're not going to eat?" He pressed the girl's shoulder and pushed her aside.

Kurusu Yosei returned to his seat and picked up his chopsticks again. "Matsue must be in a relationship. Is it with Tomatsu or Mochizuki?"

Upon hearing the girl's suspicions, Jun Matsue was relieved; she was merely guessing and hadn't actually discovered her senior's existence.

"You're overthinking it. I have no interest in dating them." He said matter-of-factly, and of course he wasn't lying; it was partly true.

"Then why have you and Mochizuki been acting so strangely lately?" Kurusu Yosei asked, frowning and biting the chopsticks in his mouth.

"Have it?"

“There is—” The girl was about to speak again, but was interrupted by Jun Matsue.

"If we keep chatting like this, who knows when we'll finish dinner?"

"Then let's talk about it after dinner!" Lai Qiyang focused on eating, determined to get to the bottom of things tonight.

The two spent twenty minutes finishing off the salad and tofu soup. Two chicken drumsticks were left, which the girl put in the refrigerator for breakfast the next day.

Jun Matsue stood in front of the kitchen sink washing dishes. He watched the clear water wash away the foam on the plates and pondered the topic of the dinner table.

Has he been acting strangely lately?

Previously, when he came to Qiyang, he mentioned that she often looked at her phone and frequently went to her bedroom. However, as she spent more time with her senior during the summer vacation, this behavior has largely disappeared. Moreover, the girl has been busy with activities recently, so the two of them haven't had as much contact.

If anything is unusual, it's that he's been preparing breakfast for Kurusu every day now. Isn't that a good thing for the girl?
Matsueda Jun couldn't find the problem, but the dishes were already washed. He turned off the tap, put the dishes in the cupboard, took off his apron and hung it on the wall, then turned and walked out of the kitchen.

The girl standing guard outside the kitchen blocked his way. "Come with me for an after-dinner walk, and we can have a good chat about your problem, Matsue!"

"Yes, yes." Jun followed her to the entrance to change her shoes.

Then again, why should he listen to Kurusu? She's not his girlfriend.
Even with these thoughts in mind, he still put the key from the shoe cabinet into his pocket and walked out of the apartment with the girl.

The sun's brightest days had passed. As the two walked into the street, the dim sky still held the pink hues of sunset on its edges. The streetlights were not yet on. They headed northwest, the opposite of their usual direction.

"I said, is Matsue really not dating Mochizuki?" Kurusu Yosei asked again. Tomatsu Tomoka was just a cover; Mochizuki Haruka was the one she suspected.

"What exactly gave you this illusion?" Jun Matsue looked at the girl beside him. She was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, her long hair was tied up in a bun, and she was kicking the pebbles under her feet with her head down.

Compared to an idol, Yosuke Kurusu is more like a lively childhood friend who grew up next door.

"It's because you two have been acting strangely lately." The girl raised her right leg and kicked a small stone towards a stray cat in the distance.

"Like last time when Mochizuki inexplicably argued with me, and the way she looked at me was weird too." She gestured with both hands.

"It's like they're looking down on me, but with a hint of pity. Their gaze can suddenly turn angry. In short, they give off a condescending vibe. I hate it!"

"Uh." Jun Matsue was somewhat speechless. He really hadn't noticed anything like that, after all, Mochizuki would never treat him like that. "That's just how she is, more unpredictable than a cat. Actually, she was praising you before you got on the bus that day."

"Really? What did you say to me?" Kurusu Yosei's attention immediately wandered.

"She said you are better than many idols."

"Isn't that the truth?" The girl was unmoved, crossing her arms and letting out a soft snort.

The two walked out of the alley and turned left at the red light at the intersection. The streetlights began to come on, and the brief, hazy world after sunset disappeared. They were now in Tokyo at night.

Yosuke Kurusu continued his topic, "Anyway, I wasn't talking about Mochizuki's personality. Her behavior is like she's getting ahead of me in some way that I don't know about!"

"I really don't know." Jun Matsueda shook his head helplessly.

“And you, Songzhi, too!” The girl walked up to the boy, turned around, and glared at him.

“Lately, your conversations with me have been like writing a report—time, place, what happened, and that’s it.”

"I went to perform in the shopping district with the band today. We've decided to take a break in August, and we probably won't be active again until the start of the school year." Yosuke Kurusu gruffly imitated what Jun Matsueda had said at the dinner table.

"How do you feel? What are your thoughts? What are the details?"

The girl backed away from Jun Matsueda. "If it were the old Matsueda, he would at least have told me how many people came to today's performance, or whether I enjoyed playing the drums today, and so on."

"And you're not curious about me anymore! You didn't even ask a single question about the magazine photoshoots or my previous performances that I mentioned."

"A senior colleague who shared the stage with me before once said that this disappearance of the desire to share is a typical sign of being in a relationship—"

"Because they've already told others, they're too lazy to tell you again!"

"Is it? A pine branch!"

The girl stopped and looked at Jun Matsue approaching her.

She once again accurately caught the boy's unusual behavior, proving that Yosei Kurusu knew Jun Matsueda much better than he did Haruka Mochizuki.

Jun Matsue stared at the girl standing in front of him. He had a headache. Idols aren't supposed to date, so why was his senior, Kurusu, sharing his dating experience with her?
Kurusu Yosei didn't speak, just stared at him without blinking. The girl's eyes shone brightly in the night, even brighter than the streetlights in the distance.

Jun Matsue knew he could no longer lie.

"Hmm," he said carefully.

"Perhaps, I mean perhaps, I have recently been thinking about being in a relationship."

The girl in front of him blinked, her thick eyelashes trembling slightly. She took a second to understand the answer, then opened her eyes wide.

"what?!"

Her screams drifted away into the night sky.

It seems that Songzhi's family has only completed half of their walk tonight.

(End of this chapter)