Am I being simulated by their love affair.

Chapter 513 The Countdown to the End

Tomatsu Yuka sat under the cherry blossom tree, watching the petals flutter down in front of her.

Her scenes were over, and now standing in front of Matsueda Jun was Mochizuki Haruka, who had changed into a black dress. The two were acting in the middle of the bridge over the river—the boy in the white shirt and the girl in the swaying black dress looked exceptionally well-matched.

Tomatsu Yuka picked up the bottled water that was placed at her feet and tilted her slender neck back.

"Being an actor is much more complicated than I imagined," the girl remarked as she tightened the bottle cap.

“I think being an actor is harder than being a director,” said Natsumi Imokawa, sitting next to her while watching the video on the camera.

"The director only needs to be responsible for the imagination and arrangement, while the actors are responsible for expressing those imagined emotions."

“If it’s just one performance, that’s fine, but in many cases, even if the director is satisfied with your performance, they will still ask you to do it again or to perform it in a different way.”

"At times like these, one needs not only a delicate and affectionate heart to showcase one's acting skills, but also the stability and patience of a manual laborer."

"So becoming a qualified actor is a very difficult thing."

"I can already feel it," Tomatsu Yuka nodded helplessly.

That was just a brief shot of her looking up at Jun Matsueda. Because the angle and speed of her looking up were not satisfactory, it was filmed three times at the director's request.

"Tomatsu-kun has done very well." Natsumi Imokawa pointed the camera screen at the girl. "You got into the zone quickly, and you had a good sense of the camera. You took far fewer unusable shots than I expected."

"I'm glad I didn't slow everyone down." Tomatsu Yuka smiled with relief. "But Imokawa-san surprised me too."

"Huh?" Natsumi Imokawa put down her camera.

"The Imokawa I met today is completely different from what I remembered," the girl continued. "I always thought you were the kind of person who didn't like to talk or express yourself."

But she just talked so much and looked so serious during filming. Is she usually like this in front of Tsunkun?
I've heard that people become especially attractive when they're focused on something.
Tomatsu Yuka looked at the girl in front of her as if she wanted to uncover everything she had hidden.

“Uh,” Natsumi Imokawa suddenly felt a little flustered. “It’s just that I know these things better, so I talked a bit more.”

"Hmm." Tomatsu Yuka didn't speak, she just smiled lightly.

The boy on the bridge waved in their direction, and Natsumi Imokawa quickly stood up with her camera.

"Um, Songzhi and the others are ready, let's continue filming!"

The girl ran towards the bridge, her steps unsteady. Tomatsu Yuka calmly picked up the clapperboard that was placed to the side, stood up and followed behind her.

Half an hour later, Jun Matsue stepped out of the camera's field of view and walked toward the girl standing not far away.

"Tsun-kun's scenes are finished?" Tomatsu Yuka, who had been waiting for a long time, smiled brightly and handed over the bottled water she was holding in her arms.

"We should be done filming for today, right?" The boy turned around and glanced at the girl in the black dress still standing in the camera's view. "Next up, it seems like we're filming the scene of Fujii Kaede taking a walk by the river."

"Then you can rest now~"

"I am indeed a bit tired." Jun Matsue nodded and took a big gulp of water.

The repeated emotional maneuvering brought him not physical exhaustion, but mental fatigue. He is now even more grateful that he did not enter the entertainment industry.

"Now I can finally get some rest," Tomatsu Yuka said, patting the bench next to her.

The boy obediently sat down, then looked into the distance. Imokawa Natsumi was changing the camera angle, while Mochizuki Haruka was fiddling with the hem of her dress, looking at him with a haughty, cat-like gaze. "I feel like Imokawa-kun's short film is going to be a huge project," the girl beside him said, drawing his attention back.

"The time span will be quite large, right?" the boy thought for a moment. "Almost ten years have passed in the story."

"But Konno An's time only ended after graduating from high school. After that, she never saw Kashiwabara Hikaru again and could only communicate through letters..." Tomatsu Yuka's tone was somewhat melancholy.

"It's said that the family is going to inherit a shrine or something, Imokawa's character setting is really wicked." Jun Matsueda recalled the content of the story.

The whole family moved to a remote island and lived in a traditional shrine. They could only communicate with their loved ones through slow letters, and the young man and woman who admired each other entered into different rhythms of life.

To exaggerate a bit, it's no different from living in a different era.

When watching this scene, he always thinks of Yamami Maki's smile.

"Fortunately, it's just a fictional story." Tomatsu Yuka smiled. "In reality, I don't need to experience the life-and-death separation with Tsunku."

Matsueda Jun fell silent, looking at Mochizuki Haruka's figure strolling along the riverbank in the distance.

Actually, he's been thinking about this relationship for the past few days, but he hasn't mentioned it to the girl next to him yet.

"What are you thinking about, Chun-kun? Are you figuring out how to play the role of a 'socialite' when the time comes?" the girl asked with a smile, while the boy remained silent.

"Actually, I know," Tomatsu Yuka blinked. "You're thinking about when we're going to break up, right?"

Jun Matsue looked at her, and the girl smiled gently.

“I know Tsun-kun—once things calmed down after what happened with Senpai, you probably started thinking about what should become of our relationship, right?”

"Hey, how about you consider making me a permanent employee?"

Upon hearing this question, Jun Matsue's mind immediately conjured up the face of Haruka Mochizuki—her stubborn yet sorrowful expression.

The girl had been waiting for him for a long time since she returned from her drifting through the boundless world.

"Hmm," Tomatsu Yuka's smile faded slightly, "Then how about we gradually act indifferent in front of everyone, and then announce the breakup after a while?"

After learning so many lessons, the girl understood this principle: if you are not greedy, you will not make mistakes.

So even though she was extremely unwilling, she still said those words.

Jun Matsue wanted to apologize, but he remembered that the girl in front of him didn't seem to like those two words, so he could only nod.

After the sun set, the day's filming came to an end. The eldest daughter of the Mochizuki family arrived in her family's car and drove the girls home one by one.

Finally, only the boy and girl remained in the back seat of the black sedan. On the way to Mitaka, Mochizuki Haruka looked at the boy sitting next to her.

What did you and Tomatsu Yuka talk about while I was filming?

Matsueda Jun watched the streetlights outside the car window light up, forming a straight line. "We just chatted about the plot written by Imagawa."

I'll tell Mochizuki about this when this relationship is completely over.

(End of this chapter)