Am I being simulated by their love affair.

Chapter 603 Shrine Ema Godly Tree

After lunch, the students returned to the hotel and packed their luggage. Then, carrying their bags and suitcases, they boarded the bus again.

Twenty minutes later, the swaying bus drove into Kawana, a small town in Ito City, and stopped on the side of Prefectural Route 109.

The first thing Jun Matsuoka did after getting off the bus was to turn around and look up—behind the lush forest on the other side of the county road, a green, gently sloping hill could be seen.

"This is Mount Komuro?"

“That’s right.” Tomatsu Yuka walked to the boy’s side and turned around with him. “That’s where we go after leaving the art museum.”

Compared to Mount Omuro, which resembles a matcha pudding, Mount Komuro is noticeably smaller, and its surface is not a flat lawn but rather covered with trees of varying shades.

"It's like moldy pudding."

The girl smiled at the boy's comment. Mochizuki Haruka walked past the two with light steps, glancing back at them.

"It looks boring."

Kawana's first stop was the Stained Glass Museum, where stained glass, which is usually only seen in cathedrals, can be seen everywhere.

When the students from Yugaoka High School arrived, they were just in time for the concert. Everyone sat in the church, watching the musicians in white robes sit in front of the pipe organ produced in 1922 and play the sacred and solemn wedding march.

Sitting in the front row, Jun Matsue turned his head to the side, while Haruka Mochizuki looked up, gazing at the beautiful stained glass on the wall in front of him.

The boy turned to the other side, and Tomatsu Yuka closed her eyes, her smooth chin swaying gently with the melody.

"Does Yuka still play the saxophone?" he whispered in the girl's ear.

Tomatsu Yuka opened her eyes, and the girl looked at her with the same gaze she would give her fiancé from the altar in front of a church.

"I do blow it~" she said softly, "I blow it when I'm in a good mood, and I blow it when I'm in a bad mood."

"If Jun-kun wants to hear it, I can play it for you when we get back."

The boy nodded. "Didn't you get invited to be the principal of the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra back then? It would be a shame to waste your talent."

“An orchestra…” the girl looked at the musicians in front of the organ.

"I prefer to play for Tsunkun alone rather than with others."

After spending an hour and a half in the art museum, admiring the stained glass lamps, chandeliers, and murals, and listening to a performance of an antique standing music box, Jun Matsueda bought a few stained glass cups and some other trinkets in the souvenir shop before returning to the bus with the girls.

After another twenty minutes of driving, they circled around from the back of Mount Komuro to the front and stood in front of the cable car lined up in the dense forest.

"Who wants to go first?" Mochizuki Haruka turned around.

This time, she no longer had to compete with Tomatsu Yuka for the seat next to the boy—because the extremely simple cable car only had one seat, and because it was so close to the ground, there wasn't even a handrail; passengers could only hold onto the pole connecting the cable car and the suspension cable.

"I'll go first then." Tomatsu Yuka boarded the cable car, Mochizuki Haruka followed closely behind, and Matsueda Jun lagged behind.

Watching the black and white skirts swaying among the bushes on either side, the boy turned his head and looked at the green silhouette of the rolling hills in the distance.

Compared to the first day of open and covert struggles, the situation today was undoubtedly much more stable, and his mood gradually calmed down.

He lightly jumped off the cable car and landed on the mountaintop platform. Jun Matsueda glanced at his phone.

It's 3:26 PM now. The sun is neither too hot nor too cold, and the breeze is neither too strong nor too weak—perfect time for a walk.

He followed the girls onto the wooden circular path. Mount Komuro was indeed small; without even reaching the edge of the summit, the sea appeared automatically in his peripheral vision—compared to the ocean seen from the summit of Mount Omuro, the sea was now a deeper color, like deep blue agate, bringing a cool comfort to his eyes.

"I'm a little thirsty." Mochizuki Haruka looked at the coffee shop nestled in the center of the mountaintop.

Jun Matsueda glanced at the long, shadowy queue inside the coffee shop. "I'll go buy a coffee. What would you like to drink?"

The girl licked her lips. "I want a cappuccino."

“I just want to be like Tsunku~” Tomatsu Yuka blinked, and Mochizuki Haruka immediately glared at her.

So the boy walked down the path and headed towards the coffee shop. There weren't too many customers, and he waited for about ten minutes before leaving the counter with a bag containing a cappuccino and two mochas.

As he walked out of the coffee shop and before heading back the way he came, Jun Matsueda noticed something in his peripheral vision.

"...There's a shrine here too?"

He stood in front of the somewhat small torii gate, looking at the sign above that read "Komuro Shrine".

Compared to the simplicity of Omuro-san Shrine, Komuro Shrine is not much better; the shimenawa rope on the torii gate is even a rough straw rope without any decoration.

However, though small, it has everything you need. At the end of the short path are the shrine and offering box, and on both sides of the torii gate are racks with fortune slips and ema (votive plaques).

Matsueda Jun lowered his head. The fortune-telling box and blank ema (votive plaques) were placed on the wooden table in front of the torii gate, indicating that they were all self-service and free of charge.

The boy didn't draw lots, but went straight to the hanging ema (votive plaques) – he was curious about what kind of person would write ema in such a place.

"I hope my granddaughter will be healthy and well."

"Bu Jun, stop holed up in your room playing with models and hurry up and find me a daughter-in-law!"

"When will we get a raise...?"

Jun Matsue looked at the ema (votive plaques) one by one. It seemed that most of the people who came here for a walk were elderly, and most of the owners of the ema also looked quite old.

Until he saw the brightest-colored, youngest-looking ema in the corner, with handwriting that looked very familiar.

There's no way I could admit I was wrong; those were the words I wrote with myself in the school lab, dissecting cherry blossoms and writing down flower equations.

"I wish I wasn't a child of the Yami family."

The originally beautiful and graceful characters are now crooked and twisted, indicating that the owner was not in a calm mood when writing the ema.

Jun Matsue took a deep breath, walked out of the shrine, and looked at the land beyond the bay in the distance.

That's the direction of Tokyo.

"So, my senior has been here before..."

At nine o'clock in the evening, in the hot spring of the Ito Ryokan, Ken Sakamuro stepped out of the bath and looked back at the misty water.

"Songzhi, I'm going out now, okay?"

"Mmm." A voice came from the misty steam. "I'll soak a little longer and then leave."

The wet footsteps gradually faded away. Jun Matsue, who was soaking in the hot spring, changed his position. He leaned against the edge of the pool and looked up at the wooden ceiling.

He was still thinking about the ema he had seen during the day.

The boy stared blankly for a while, then picked up his phone which was lying on the shore.

Komuro Shrine has an old and gnarled azalea tree, which is considered a sacred tree, hence Komuro Shrine is also called Komuro Azalea Shrine.

Jun Matsue looked up the meaning of azaleas on his phone.

control.

loyalty.

The joy of love.

It will always belong to you.

　I'd like to recommend my good friend Huainan'an's book, "The Heir's Not So Friendly to Me," a Japanese light novel with delicate writing. I think many of my readers are already reading it.

　　Now that it's nearly 800,000 words, it's time to really get into it!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)