Am I being simulated by their love affair.

Chapter 548 Imokawa's World: Changed Yet Remains Unchanged
The next morning, Jun Matsue pushed open the door to his apartment. He had only taken a few steps down the hallway when he heard another door open behind him.

The boy turned around, and behind the open metal door of room 506, Mochizuki Haruka's head peeked out, with her cat peeking out from her feet along with its owner.

"Where is Songzhi going?" The sleepy girl rubbed her eyes and lifted her pajamas that had slipped off her shoulders.

"I'm going to go record with Imokawa today." Jun Matsueda glanced at the time on his phone; it was just past nine o'clock.

"You got up so early today?"

"No." Mochizuki Haruka kicked the cat at her feet, letting it run back into the house. "I was just sleeping, but I think I heard you leave in my dream."

"..." The boy blinked. Is this a cat's keen intuition?
"You're going to record alone?" The girl yawned, her squinting eyes widening slightly. "Or are you going with Tomatsu Yuka?"

"I'm going to the studio at the Imokawa family home by myself."

It was a studio, and of course, also Natsumi Imokawa's little nest. Jun Matsue chose a way of putting it that was easier for Mochizuki to accept.

"Not coming back at noon?"

"not coming back."

"Then I'm going back to sleep." Mochizuki Haruka pulled the doorknob. "Remember to buy groceries when Matsue comes back this afternoon."

Watching the girl raise her arm and close the thick security door, Jun Matsue breathed a sigh of relief, turned around, and walked into the stairwell.

These past few days, his attitude towards Mochizuki Haruka seems to have softened more and more, the boy thought to himself as he listened to the footsteps echoing in the stairwell.

He walked out onto the first floor and looked up at the bright sun overhead.

Of course, Mochizuki didn't become more assertive, perhaps because she genuinely felt guilty...

Twenty-five minutes later, Jun Matsue stood in his apartment in Nishi-Ogikubo. He stepped out of the elevator and knocked on the door at the end of the corridor on the eleventh floor.

There was no response. The boy knocked twice more, waited a few seconds, and then took out his phone from his pocket—he still hadn't received a reply to the message he sent to Natsumi Imokawa.

"...Has Imokawa not gotten up yet?"

Jun Matsue opened a voice call, and the waiting ringtone was finally answered in the last few seconds.

"……Hey?"

The girl's voice was slightly hoarse, and she sounded like she hadn't woken up yet.

"Is Imokawa still sleeping?" The boy knocked on the metal door in front of him. "I'm already at your door."

"Didn't we agree to record at this time?"

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, then a sudden noise broke out. Jun Matsue heard the sound of the girl's feet hitting the floor—it seemed she had gotten out of bed.

"I'll open the door for Songzhi right away!"

The boy's phone rang with hurried footsteps, getting closer and closer until they finally sounded from the other side of the metal door.

The tightly closed door was finally opened, and Imokawa Natsumi stood panting in the doorway, having run barefoot from the bedroom.

"I'm sorry, I overslept this morning..." The girl lowered her head, her cheeks flushed.

"Did you stay up late again last night?" Jun Matsuoka looked at her light dark circles under her eyes and took a look at her appearance.

The girl was probably wearing a thin vest that she used to sleep in, with two thin straps struggling to support her full chest, making her look somewhat overburdened.

The boy immediately looked away and towards the room behind her. The curtains in the living room were drawn tightly, and almost no light could be seen.

"Did Imokawa forget to change into his pajamas?"

Jun Matsue was afraid that if he looked any further down, he might see underwear instead of shorts.

"Huh?" Natsumi Imokawa blinked in confusion, then looked down at herself.

The girl quickly ran back to the bedroom. Fortunately, the room was pitch black, and Jun Matsue could not see her back. He could only catch a glimpse of a swaying flesh color.

Thank goodness Mochizuki didn't come along... The thought flashed through the boy's mind.

He silently walked into the entryway, found the slippers he had worn before on the shoe rack by memory, then closed the door and turned on the light switch on the wall.

But no light came on. Jun Matsue pressed it twice more, but there was still no response.

However, Natsumi Imokawa's footsteps had already returned to the living room, and he asked the girl:

"Is the light by the door broken? I've pressed it several times and it doesn't work."

"Ah, it needs to be opened this way."

The room suddenly became bright. Jun Matsue blinked and watched as the girl lowered her arm. She had just pressed the switch on the wall behind the sofa.

“My dad used to like working with only one desk lamp on. He was particularly annoyed by guests and assistants turning on the room lights as soon as they came in, so he deliberately broke the light switch in the entryway.”

“People who create art often have some strange habits, which is understandable.” The boy nodded and looked at Natsumi Imokawa standing under the light.

The girl changed into a light blue striped short-sleeved shirt with a knitted cinnamon dog pattern on the chest. However, due to some physical factors, the originally cute cinnamon dog was somewhat deformed.

She wore light gray shorts, a typical loungewear style, the fabric covering a short section of her thighs and revealing a large expanse of fair skin—the girl's legs weren't particularly thin, and the soft flesh tucked into the hem of the shorts struck a perfect balance between health and sexiness.

Matsueda Jun's mind flashed back to Imokawa Natsumi's previous outfit—if Mochizuki Haruka wearing a suspender top was a pure temptation, then Imokawa Natsumi's suspender top was simply the beauty of the flesh, and even a fleeting glimpse was enough to linger in a boy's mind.

"Imokawa hasn't washed up yet, has she?" He suppressed his wandering thoughts and walked up to the girl.

“…Hmm.” A little redness still lingered on Imokawa Natsumi’s cheeks. “Matsue, sit in the living room for a while. I’ll go wash up first.”

The girl turned and walked towards the other side of the corridor. Jun Matsue watched as she pushed open the bathroom door and pulled back the curtains at the end of the corridor. The originally gloomy and narrow space immediately became bright and warm.

The boy looked away, glancing at the large sofa in the living room on his right, then turned to look at the work area on his left. It seemed to have changed quite a bit since his last visit.

Since we're just waiting anyway, we might as well take a look around first.

Jun Matsue walked toward the long table, and the first thing he noticed was the several mannequins on it. They were small wooden figures without specific facial features, only movable torsos and limb joints, probably for girls to use as a reference for movements.

Three wooden figures were placed in front of the computer. One of them was noticeably taller and had the word "Jun" written on its face, which is pronounced "chun".

So this is his villain?
As the boy looked down to examine the scene closely, the sound of the girl's slippers clattering behind him came from behind.

"What is Songzhi looking at?"

He turned his head. There were still water droplets on Imokawa Natsumi's face that hadn't been wiped dry. Her hair, which had been sticking up from sleeping, had become neat and tidy, sliding down her neck and onto her shoulders.

Looking at the rounded, natural face in front of him, Jun Matsue realized once again that Imokawa could be considered a beautiful girl.

“I’m looking at your model.” He turned to the side, letting the girl see the wooden figure in front of the computer. “Is that the tallest one me?” “Yes!” Natsumi Imokawa nodded.

She walked past the boy, sat down at the table, and tapped the little man's head with her finger.

“This is pine branch. The shortest one next to you is Mochizuki, and the other one is Tomatsu.”

"These are the ones I bought based on your approximate heights before filming began, so it would be easier to imagine the scenes when you interact."

"Like this."

The girl opened miniature Matsueda Jun's arms, letting it hug miniature Mochizuki Haruka beside her, and then pressed its head down.

"For things like kissing, you have to consider the height difference, and whether bending over will affect the aesthetics of the scene."

She pointed to the two wooden figures kissing on the table, "So if Mochizuki were to kiss you, it would look better if she stood on her tiptoes rather than you bending over."

“…There’s no such scene in the script.” Jun Matsue watched as Natsumi Imokawa pressed down on the little figure’s head with her fingers, nodding it little by little, as if imitating a bird nodding.

"I just display it for fun," the girl said enthusiastically. "I've tried this kind before!"

She swept the miniature Mochizuki Haruka aside, and the little figure wobbled and fell to the ground. Then she picked up the miniature Tomomika Tomomi and laid it flat on the table. Finally, she let the miniature Matsue Jun's body lie on top of it.

"Wait, wait," Jun Matsue called out to her. "It's one thing to study standing and sitting postures, but why are you studying this?"

“Because Dad wasn’t an action movie director before…” the girl muttered softly, “I’m a little curious about what it’s like when he’s designing action sequences for his movies.”

"Stop being curious," the boy said irritably. "Hurry up and eat some breakfast, then record."

“Oh.” Natsumi Imokawa nodded obediently. She walked to the door on the other side of the long table and took out a bag of red bean toast and a carton of milk from the kitchen.

"You eat this for breakfast?" Jun Matsueda's desire to take care of others began to stir.

"It's almost ten o'clock now." The girl returned to her seat. "I'll eat a little something and it'll be lunchtime soon."

"Has Songzhi had breakfast yet? Would you like some too?" She pushed the toast on the table toward the boy and asked cautiously.

Jun Matsue didn't want to eat it, but Natsumi Imokawa's innocent, childlike eyes stared straight at him, with a hint of ingratiation.

The boy sat down helplessly. "I've already eaten breakfast, so I'll just try half a slice."

The girl happily tore off the piece of toast she was biting and handed him most of it.

"..."

He silently put it in his mouth and chewed. The sweet red beans had a sandy texture, which, combined with the light aroma of the toast, was indeed quite good.

"It tastes pretty good, but it's not very nutritious."

"There's milk too!" Natsumi Imokawa brought him the milk she had just drunk a couple of sips of.

“…I’ve already had breakfast, and I’m not thirsty.” Jun Matsueda pushed the milk carton back.

The thought that Iokawa's sense of distance was definitely problematic popped into the boy's mind again.

However, in thinking this way, he seemed to have forgotten that he had just said a few days ago that he didn't mind indirect kissing.

So the girl stopped talking and lowered her head to eat her bread seriously. Jun Matsue watched her chewing slowly.

After Natsumi Imokawa picked up the red bean residue that had fallen on her chest and put it in her mouth, the boy had no choice but to look away.

"The work area in Yuchuan has changed a lot since the last time I came here." He decided to find something to talk about.

"Mmm!" the girl mumbled, taking a sip of milk.

"Dad moved all his things out, so this place is completely mine now!"

“No wonder.” Jun Matsuoka looked around at the bookshelves. There were far fewer CDs on them, and the storyboard drafts that used to be posted on the whiteboard wall were gone. In their place were photos of the film crew on set—all of them about “White Line Flow”.

There were far fewer notebooks on the workbench. He flipped through them casually; they were all scripts and storyboards written in white lines, just marked with different versions, and they all seemed to be discarded drafts.

"So you stayed up all night last night to edit the video?"

The girl nodded and finished off the last small piece of bread in her hand.

"The main task was to organize the materials. Just matching the audio and video together accurately was very time-consuming. Only a small part of the final product was cut."

“You can’t stay up late all the time.” Jun Matsueda frowned slightly. “It will cause health problems.”

"I just slept in a little later during the holiday..." The originally excited girl shrank her neck. "When I was in school, I basically went to bed early and got up early, and my mom would often come to check on me!"

"Anyway, you need to take good care of your health. You've only just started your professional career, and you'll be filming for a long time to come."

As Jun Matsue spoke, he felt as if he had become half a father to Imagawa.

"Mmm~" Natsumi Imokawa didn't seem to mind at all; on the contrary, she smiled contentedly. "I know Matsueda is doing this for my own good~"

"You can get ready to record!" She stood up from her seat, tilted her head back, and poured the last bit of milk into her mouth.

Jun Matsue watched her rather bold actions. The girl had only eaten two slices of bread, but had drunk 900 milliliters of milk—if she had been drinking like this since she was little, no wonder she had developed such a magnificent figure…

Natsumi Imokawa put down the cardboard box in her hand, licked the milk stains from her lips, and walked towards the hallway in the living room.

"Pine branch, follow me~"

The boy followed her to her feet and walked into the corridor where the girl had fled in panic. The window at the end of the corridor let in a clear light, which shone on Natsumi Imokawa's youthful body, who was wearing a tank top and shorts, making her seem to glow as well.

"Imokawa, has anyone ever confessed their feelings to you, or had any crush on you?"

"Huh?" The girl turned around in surprise. "Why is Songzhi suddenly asking this?"

"Just a little curious."

Jun Matsue recalled that Imokawa said she didn't have many friends, and it seemed to be true. However, neither her appearance nor her personality suggested that she was the kind of person who was unattractive.

"No..." she recalled, "If someone contacts me, we usually only chat for a few minutes and then there's no next time."

“They seemed to think I was strange—I was never focused on the conversation, my eyes kept wandering, and what I said had nothing to do with the original topic.”

"You were thinking about what we could photograph around us, weren't you?" The boy was already quite familiar with the girl's pattern. "It's not good to be distracted while chatting with others, you know?"

"Well, there's nothing I can do about it." Natsumi Imokawa pouted slightly. "They're not as interesting as Matsue!"

Well, Matsueda Jun realized he was overthinking it. It didn't seem so bad if Imokawa just continued to do things his own way.

Anyway, I'm already in her world, aren't I?
(End of this chapter)