Am I being simulated by their love affair.

Chapter 589 Before Summer Arrives

By the time the scenes on the coast were finished, it was already past eleven o'clock. Before continuing filming, the crew decided to have lunch first.

Stepping into a restaurant called "Princess Wave" on the shore, the cool air conditioning inside was refreshing. The four of them sat down by the window, and Natsumi Imokawa took the initiative to raise her arm and look at the waiter in the restaurant.

"Excuse me, could you please take my order?"

A brown-skinned woman in a short-sleeved shirt brought over four glasses of iced water and a menu, then maintained a polite and reassuring distance from the guests, waiting a short distance away.

Natsumi Imokawa took the camera off her chest and pushed the menu to the center of the table.

"Um, lunch is on me, everyone order whatever you like!"

Sitting diagonally opposite, Jun Matsue looked up and pressed down on Haruka Mochizuki's right hand, which was climbing up his lap.

"Splitting the bill is fine. Imokawa isn't working, can his wallet handle it?"

"It's okay!" The girl shook her head. "Making a portfolio is expensive, and my parents gave me a lot of money."

"Besides, Tomatsu-san chose the restaurant, and Matsue and Mochizuki-san came with us. I've troubled you all so much, so I should at least show my appreciation!"

Jun Matsueda glanced at the other people at the table; the girls didn't seem to have any objections.

"Then I'll treat you, so you can feel more at ease."

“Okay!” Natsumi Imokawa blinked happily, as if she were the one being treated.

What would you all like to eat?

Subconsciously, the boy looked at Tomatsu Yuka sitting opposite him. The girl smiled at him in tacit understanding, leaned forward, and pointed her index finger at the menu on the table.

"This place is said to have delicious fried chicken nuggets. They use Satsuma chicken, one of the three major local chicken breeds, and they are good with their homemade tartar sauce or fried chicken vinegar with bonito flavor."

The brown-skinned older sister standing not far away smiled and nodded.

"This young lady knows a lot! This is my father's proudest dish."

Tomatsu Yuka continued, "Their chicken dishes are all pretty good, and you can also try this teppanyaki moonflower chicken meatball."

"Tomatsu-kun is amazing..." Natsumi Imokawa looked admiringly at him. "It's like you know all the restaurants inside and out."

The girl smiled. "I just did some research beforehand."

Mochizuki Haruka, who had been staring blankly at the beach outside the window, suddenly snapped out of her reverie and pointed to another page of the menu that had been overlooked.

"I want to eat seafood."

Tomatsu Yuka glanced at her. She'd clearly said the restaurant's chicken dishes were delicious, so why did she insist on eating seafood...?

If it were just this kind of childish hostility, I could manage to handle it.

"Then—"

The girl's words were cut off by Jun Matsue, "Let's start with a serving of fried chicken nuggets, a serving of chicken meatballs, and a large seafood risotto as our main course."

"What would you like to eat, Yu Chuan?" He looked down at the menu.

“Oyakodon!” Natsumi Imokawa swallowed hard.

Having set off early in the morning and carried her camera all morning, she was now starving and had no interest in observing the complicated relationship between the three.

"Then let's have seafood risotto for three," Tomatsu Yuka suggested.

Mochizuki Haruka stared at her for two seconds, then turned her head to look out the window at the barefoot children picking up seashells.

Jun Matsueda looked at the waiter who walked to the table and said, "Please add a large bowl of Miurachi anchovy salad as the last dish."

Tomatsu Yuka smiled and picked up her water glass, "When you're at the seaside, you just want to try more seafood!"

"This restaurant is quite close to the filming location of Imogawa-kun. If you're having dinner in Zushi again, there's a 'Moonlight' bar near Zushi Station where the seafood and seasonal ingredients delivered directly from the market are very fresh."

The boy nodded and silently took a sip of ice water. The girl's surveys were always so thorough that it made people want to clear their minds and follow her instructions.

If I had actually shared an apartment with Tomatsu during college, she might have turned me into a useless person...

While waiting for lunch to be served, the group chatted.

"By the way, why didn't Imagawa choose Kamakura next door? Kamakura's sea is beautiful too." Jun Matsueda looked at the girl waving her hand and fanning herself.

Her cheeks were a little flushed, apparently because she felt the air conditioning in the store wasn't cool enough.

"Kamakura's coastline is so famous, so many people have gone to see it..."

As she spoke, Natsumi Imokawa took off her backpack and placed it on her seat. She straightened up, resting her ample breasts on the table, and her expression immediately relaxed.

"And the railway tracks and such, it doesn't capture the feeling of a remote island."

The girl was wearing a light yellow short-sleeved shirt today. Her full and soft breasts made the fabric on her chest taut, and when it was piled on the table, it trembled like pudding, attracting a lot of attention.

"..." Tomatsu Yuka glanced at her sideways, "It seems like making movies is really hard work, having to run around like this for a realistic shot."

The girl nodded in agreement, "Generally speaking, you can also find a photo studio, and there are quite a few photo studios in Tokyo."

"But I wanted to shoot at the beach, so I could only use post-production or real-life footage. I don't know how to do advanced post-production, and I don't have the money to hire someone, so I had to come here and shoot it myself."

"At least the scenery is quite nice, it's a good place to relax~" Tomatsu Yuka said with a smile, patting the shoulder of the person next to her.

A bust like that must be very attractive to guys... Her gaze shifted to the other side of the table.

Jun Matsue was staring at the counter when the waitress brought a large plate of fried chicken onto a tray and started adding the accompanying sauce to small dishes.

"Speaking of which, Mochizuki's hometown is Kamakura, right?" The boy turned to look at the girl beside him.

"Hmm..." Mochizuki Haruka leaned on the table, her eyes slightly narrowed, her long eyelashes trembling gently as she combed through the crystal-clear light from the window.

The warmth seeping through her eyelids made the girl a little sleepy, and Jun Matsue smiled quietly.

Seeing the smile in the boy's eyes, Tomatsu Yuka sighed silently in her heart.

There's no time to keep an eye on Natsumi Imokawa now; she needs to secure her position first...

"What scenes will we be filming this afternoon?" Jun Matsue asked, looking at the girl crunching on ice.

"Let me see." Natsumi Imokawa took out a printed book from her bag.

"The scene shows a student writing and reading letters in the classroom, with the sea crashing against the shore outside the window."

"I would walk out of the school at dusk with the envelope in my hand, reading the letter as I walked through the empty streets of the town."

"Sitting in front of the empty dock, waiting for the letter to arrive."

"..."

"Finally, I returned home to find an envelope on the desk by the window, but it hadn't been opened."

“Ah, we can film the last scene in Tokyo!” She looked up. “The main thing is to convey the passage of time through the background and costumes.”

The boy pondered, "Although I can do color corrections later, I feel like I'd have to wait until evening, right?"

"Maybe so." The girl touched her cheek shyly. "Let's try to leave for Tokyo around six or seven o'clock so as not to take up too much of everyone's time."

"There seems to be a fireworks festival today. Should we go check it out?" Jun Matsue thought of the billboard he had seen on the way.

To his surprise, the three girls at the table said in unison—

"No!" "There will be a lot of people then." Natsumi Imokawa explained, "The beach and the nearby streets will be packed with people, and there will be all sorts of stalls and such, so it won't be easy to get out."

"..." Mochizuki Haruka didn't speak. She was woken up by the aroma of seafood risotto and fried chicken. The girl picked up a piece of fried chicken and put it in her mouth, squinting her eyes with satisfaction.

Tomatsu Yuka picked up the silver fork placed on the side of the salad bowl and slowly stirred it, allowing the sauce to evenly penetrate the vegetables and anchovy meat.

"I heard from Mitani a few days ago that there should be a fireworks display during the school trip. If we see it now, the surprise will be less, right?"

However, her thoughts were actually the same as Mochizuki Haruka's: she didn't want Matsueda Jun to have other women around her during such an extremely romantic moment.

"let it go."

Jun Matsue looked at the sizzling, fragrant chicken meatballs in front of him, with the onsen egg on the hot plate trembling enticingly—"Tsukimi Chicken Meatballs," which refers to the round moon.

Let’s eat first.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, Jun Matsue stood in the old school building of Zushi Kaisei High School.

His gaze passed through the window frame, and on the coastline right in front of him were silhouettes of pedestrians reduced to thin blocks of color.

The intense midday sun had faded, and the light, having passed through the clouds, had become much softer, rippling like water on the exterior walls of the old school building, accompanied by the faint sound of tides.

The approaching footsteps made the boy turn around. Tomatsu Yuka stood behind him with a gentle smile on her face.

"What do you think, Chun-kun?" The girl lifted the hem of her skirt with both hands, striking a ballet-like pose.

She had changed out of the pure white sundress she wore in the morning and was now wearing a high school uniform from Kagoshima.

The sailor uniform, after being rinsed many times, showed signs of aging whiteness, but the light blue front and bow remained the color of the sea.

The boy blinked. "Is this what it feels like to be a girl from a small island?"

Tomatsu Yuka laughed, her loosened skirt cascading down, the light blue plaid pattern swaying against her fair thighs.

"After spending half a day in Zushi City, I think I'm starting to like living by the sea."

Jun Matsue glanced back at the shimmering water outside the window. "After finishing a test, when you're tired, you can look up and see the sea. That kind of high school life is truly something to look forward to."

“But Konno An is all alone…” The girl walked to his side, “spending her days on a remote island, isn’t that a bit too lonely?”

"Luckily, I only came to Zushi Coast to act out a play with Tsun-kun's company." She wiped the disappointment from her face as she got into character.

"Is filming all done?"

"We've taken all the photos we could at this point." Tomatsu Yuka reached out and held onto the window frame, looking out at the sea that the boy was watching.

"Imokawa is checking the footage next door. She said that once it starts to get dark, she can leave after shooting a few more sunset shots."

"Where is Mochizuki-san?" The girl looked around but couldn't find Mochizuki Haruka.

"She's sleeping in the infirmary," the boy said, pointing to the corridor outside the window.

Mochizuki Haruka started feeling sleepy after lunch. She was supposed to sleep until noon today, but she had been traveling with the three of them early in the morning. The weather by the sea was hot, so it was normal for her to feel sleepy and take a nap.

"The infirmary?" Tomatsu Tomoka was a little surprised. "Shouldn't the old school building be all dusty?"

When they entered the classroom that Natsumi Imokawa had chosen in the afternoon, they even took some time to clean it.

Jun Matsue shrugged. "The maid will take care of it for her."

"I see..." the girl smiled. "As expected of a young lady."

The classroom fell silent, while outside the window came the sounds of waves crashing and leaves rustling in the wind.

Matsueda Jun watched as white clouds drifted up from the silver line where the sea and sky met, with a girl beside him holding onto the same window. The moment wasn't quiet, but it made the boy feel incredibly comfortable.

It seemed as if the sunlight had broken through the clouds and fallen, and he felt a soft warmth on the back of his hand resting on the window frame.

"I suddenly realized that I haven't thanked Jun-kun yet."

"What are you thanking me for?" The boy turned his head, and Tomatsu Yuka's profile had a dazzling beauty in the sunlight.

"Thank you for choosing me." The girl smiled with relief.

"Whatever the reason, whether it's sympathy, guilt, or affection, thank you for agreeing to let me stay by your side."

Jun Matsue did not speak or lower his head—so that he could not see Tomatsu's left hand covering the back of his own hand.

He didn't know the answer either.

If it really is love, then it seems irresponsible to Tomatsu, Mochizuki, or even himself.

"But I'm still very curious," the girl continued, "why didn't Mochizuki fall in love with you?"

The boy's silence was a little awkward.

"Can't you tell me?" Tomatsu Yuka turned her head to the side, brushing the stray hairs that were being blown by the wind behind her ear.

"If I don't know the reason, it's hard to truly feel at ease."

She asked herself honestly, if she were in Mochizuki Haruka's position, she would never have made such a decision.

"...She said she didn't want to be my next ex-girlfriend."

Upon hearing Jun Matsueda's words, the girl was stunned for a moment before revealing an even more cheerful smile.

“I see…” she said, watching the seagulls fly past them. “It’s surprisingly understandable.”

That's why she stole Tsunkun's first time...

"But I don't want to be the next ex-girlfriend, what should I do?"

Her honest words carried a hint of mockery, and Matsueda Jun could only close his eyes, yet the sunlight, oblivious to human nature, pierced through the blind darkness before him.

"Don't ask me that kind of question right now..."

At 6:20 p.m., the black sedan stopped in front of the dock. Mochizuki opened the car door and looked at the boy's back as he stood in front of the pier.

"Have they finished filming yet?"

“This is the last shot.” ​​Jun Matsueda turned around, revealing the figures of the girls that he had previously blocked.

Tomatsu Yuka was still wearing the same sailor uniform she wore that afternoon, sitting alone at the end of the pier. Beside her was Imokawa Natsumi, who was kneeling on the ground with a camera in hand. The evening glow painted their bodies with a deep, dark red hue.

"When will Tomatsu wrap up filming?" Mochizuki Haruka complained – the girl had slept for half the afternoon and was now refreshed.

"You didn't do anything weird with her while I was asleep, did you?" she asked warily.

The boy glanced at her and said, "I'm not that crazy."

The girls who had been frozen on the pier finally came to life. Natsumi Imokawa, who had stood up, put down her camera, turned around, and waved to the two of them.

"Filming is done! Let's wrap up!"

Mochizuki Haruka did not respond. She turned around and got into the car, leaving Matsueda Jun alone waving to the girls.

Tomatsu Yuka stared at the boy guarding the pier for a while before walking towards him.

The sea, bathed in the setting sun, receded into the distance behind them.

Summer has officially arrived.

(End of this chapter)