Am I being simulated by their love affair.

Chapter 706 Yamami Maki's Survival Dilemma

Leaving the small apartment building, the young man and woman walked into a Japanese restaurant called Xi'an at a nearby intersection and sat down at a window seat.

Jun Matsue took the handwritten menu from the waiter and pushed it in front of the girl.

"Want something to eat?"

Maki Yami flipped through the menu, her gaze sweeping over the sashimi, seasonal vegetables, and Kagoshima cuisine before settling on the last page.

"I want to eat Dan Dan noodles." She looked up.

The boy blinked. "Is this all we're going to eat?"

"Hmm!" The girl put down the menu. "Dandan noodles are usually quite spicy, right? I want some spicy."

"..." Jun Matsue recalled the time he went to Kumamoto with her to participate in a competition and ate "Torpedo" spicy dipping noodles together.

Her family told her to eat less spicy food because it might affect her image at the dinner table—that's what her senior from back then said.

"Then two bowls of Dan Dan noodles—" the boy gestured to the counter, "one regular bowl and one with extra noodles."

After taking the iced water from the waiter, Jun Matsueda looked at the girl opposite him.

"Has the senior already paid the deposit?"

The initial payment is the first fee paid when signing a rental agreement in Japan. It usually includes the first two months' rent and management fees, plus miscellaneous expenses such as access control replacement and fire insurance, which can be a considerable burden for young people just entering the workforce.

"..." Yami Maki nodded, holding the glass.

"how much is it?"

"Twenty-one thousand."

Before the man could speak, she began to explain, "I've seen the bill—this month's and next month's rent plus management fees will be 150,000, then changing the locks will cost 20,000, fire insurance will cost 20,000, and there are other fees..."

"Then you're pretty lucky." Jun Matsue took a sip of ice water, holding the ice cubes clinking between his teeth.

"This place didn't ask for any gifts or deposits."

The girl smiled and said, "I spent quite a while choosing one too."

The boy was about to speak again, but their bowls of dan dan noodles had already been served. Yamami Maki nodded slightly and said "thank you" as she looked at the steaming soup noodles in front of her.

The pale yellow ramen noodles are soaked in a bright red oily broth, topped with stir-fried minced meat, finely chopped onions, half a soft-boiled egg, two pieces of green vegetables, bean sprouts, and plenty of white sesame seeds.

The numbing and spicy aroma, along with the heat, wafted into the girl's nostrils, making her take a gentle sniff.

"Remember to prepare tissues," Jun Matsue reminded her, recalling how his senior had runny nose from the spiciness of the food.

Yamami Maki smiled shyly, then picked up her chopsticks and took a bite of the slightly firm noodles with salty and savory minced meat.

"I'm gonna start now."

Watching his senior raise her delicate eyebrows and blush with a stimulating red as she took her first bite, Jun Matsueda shook his head and gestured to the waiter not far away.

"Could I please have a pitcher of ice water?"

A few minutes later, the girl, with tears in her eyes, pulled out another tissue, lowered her head to wipe away her tears and snot, and then looked at the boy in front of her with even more flushed cheeks.

"Matsueda-san, did you have something to say to me just now?"

Jun Matsue put down his chopsticks and licked his lips, which were still warm from the spiciness. "You've finished eating?"

Yamami Maki glanced at the bowl of noodles that was still more than half full. "I'll take a break."

Matsueda Jun wiped his lips with a tissue and looked at his senior's expression—she looked like a pear blossom in the rain, and the faint melancholy between her brows and eyes had disappeared because of the spiciness.

It seems that eating spicy food has its benefits. He took a sip of ice water and pushed the bowl of noodles forward.

"After paying the initial deposit, how much money does the senior have left?"

"..." The girl straightened up and sat upright in the chair. "There are probably still more than 1.5 million yen left."

One million five hundred thousand yen is not a lot for a girl from a wealthy family.

The Yami family has a rather traditional family style, and the amount of money given as New Year's gifts is not much more than that of ordinary families. Moreover, Yami Maki is not the kind of person who would usually be frugal or thrifty—when Matsueda Jun watched her pick out Christmas gifts for her friends, the price tags were all over 50,000 yen.

“Then let me help you calculate the cost of living independently.” Jun Matsueda picked up a mouthful of noodles and blew on it.

"The rent is 85,000 yen. As for food, you're not very good at cooking. A bowl of beef bowl at Matsuya costs 500 yen. Let's say 2,000 yen a day, that's 60,000 yen a month."

He paused, put the noodles in his mouth, and gave his senior a little time to process the information.

After chewing a few mouthfuls of the intensely flavorful noodles and quickly swallowing them, the boy licked the oil off his lips and looked at the thoughtful girl.

"There are also water and electricity bills, telephone and broadband fees, and commuting costs."

"Your university life will definitely have all sorts of unexpected expenses—textbooks, classmate reunions, departmental activities..."

"All these miscellaneous expenses add up to about 30,000 to 50,000 yuan a month."

“In other words, your normal living expenses per month would be around 180,000 yen.” Jun Matsueda took another sip of water. “Someone did a statistic before that the average monthly expenditure of a university student in Tokyo is around 150,000 yen, so yours isn’t that high.”

“However, your 180,000 doesn’t include some non-essential but basic expenses.” He looked at the girl’s light green dress, “like buying clothes.”

"I didn't mean to hurt you." The boy added, looking at the senior's trembling eyelashes as she lowered her eyes.

"Since you are serious about living independently, you must start thinking about these issues now."

"I know!" Yami Maki nodded, then took another small sip of the bright red noodles, as if to encourage herself.

She parted her rosy lips and exhaled slightly, then asked earnestly.

"Then why are my expenses higher than average?"

"The biggest expenses are rent and food," Jun Matsue said without hesitation.

"If I cook for myself every day, my expenses can be kept to around 30,000 to 40,000 yen. As for rent..."

He thought of the girl's living room and bedroom, "If you rent a smaller house in Nakano Ward, you should be able to lower the rent to 60,000 yen."

"Sixty thousand yen?!" Yamami Maki froze, wiping her mouth. "How small would that area be?"

"It's about 15 to 20 square meters, similar to Aya's room."

"No bedroom?" The girl's eyes widened. When she was looking at the rental listings, she had listed them from top to bottom based on the price.

"Let me show you the pictures directly." The boy took out his phone, scrolled through the chat history, and found the everyday photos that Miyamura Aya had sent him.

"..." After seeing the girl's tiny corner room, Yamami Maki frowned, somewhat unable to accept it.

"There should at least be a separate bedroom," she muttered. "Otherwise, it doesn't feel quite right for people to see their bed as soon as they walk in..."

Although the senior student acted very approachable, she still had the air of a young lady... Matsueda Jun smiled to himself.

“Anyway, your savings can last for several more months. If you can work part-time, you shouldn’t have any problem covering these living expenses.” He reached out and held his bowl of noodles.

"Let's finish dinner first."

Ten minutes later, Yamami Maki slowly swallowed the last bite of noodles in her mouth and wiped the fine sweat from her forehead with a tissue.

The girl leaned back in her chair, relaxing her body, and let out a long, pleasant sigh.

She used to be forbidden from eating spicy food, but now, having escaped her family and deliberately broken the rules set by her parents, it's as if the spiciness has climbed into her soul, making her feel excited and happy...

Yamami Maki stared blankly at the bright red noodle soup in her bowl for a while, then picked up the chilled plum juice that the boy had ordered for her halfway through the meal and looked across the table.

Matsueda Jun, who had finished his noodles much earlier than her, was resting his chin on his hand and looking out the window. The boy's eyes were unblinking, reflecting the headlights of cars passing by on the road.

"Have you finished eating?" He turned around.

"Mmm!" The girl nodded, sucking on her straw.

Seemingly afraid that the boy would immediately get up and leave, she quickly spoke again.

"Um, is there anything else you want to tell me, Matsueda-san?"

Jun Matsue shook his head, gesturing for her to look out the window with him—

“Let’s talk about your place again,” he said, pointing to the convenience store across the street. “Although your rent isn’t exactly cheap, the location is pretty good.”

"There is a 24-hour community supermarket right outside the intersection, a 7-Eleven 100 meters to the right, and a large Maruetsu supermarket a five-minute walk south."

The boy looked at the map on his phone and said, "It's quite convenient for daily life."

“Hmm…” Yamami Maki looked at the brightly lit red “My Basket” sign across the street and subconsciously bit her straw.

"Transportation is also convenient; it's only a few minutes' walk from Higashi-Nakano Station." Jun Matsueda swiped his phone. "Shinjuku is just two stops away, so it's very convenient to go anywhere."

"...It takes half an hour to get to Ochanomizu University?" He raised an eyebrow. "It takes longer than I expected."

"Because there's no direct train," the girl explained, letting go of her straw. "It's faster to get to school from Ikebukuro Station, but the rent is also much more expensive."

"...And it only takes half an hour to get to Kugayama from here," she said to the boy who was looking down at his phone.

Kugayama Station is very close to Haneoka High School and Mitakadai Housing Complex. Jun Matsueda raised his eyes but did not respond to the girl's words.

He only spoke again after his senior had finished the rest of her plum juice.

"If you're staying here tonight, have you bought all your daily necessities?"

Yamami Maki shook her head while biting her straw, and the boy put away his phone.

“Then let’s go to ‘My Basket’ across the street to buy it. After you’re done, I’ll take you back to your apartment and then we can go home.”

“…Okay.” The girl stood up, her movements somewhat slow.

She reached the counter to pay before the boy, then felt her pockets and realized that her wallet wasn't on her; it was left in her handbag at the apartment.

"Um, can I pay with PayPay?" Yami Maki asked cautiously.

The middle-aged woman behind the counter gestured, indicating that she should scan the code herself.

Jun Matsue walked up behind his senior and saw her staring blankly at her phone.

"what happened?"

"PayPay isn't working..." The girl looked at the "Payment failed" message on her phone.

She switched the credit cards linked to her account one by one, only to find that none of them were usable.

"Was it the credit card your family got for you back then?" The boy walked up to her and smiled at the somewhat impatient shopkeeper.

"I'll treat you this time."

The two walked out of the Japanese restaurant. The girl next to Jun Matsueda fiddled with her phone for a while before putting it away.

"How to say?"

"Their credit cards must have been suspended." Yami Maki gave a helpless smile as the van drove by.

"The credit cards I usually use are given to me by my family. It's been so long that I've forgotten about them."

"What about all that money you've saved?" The man straightened his shirt collar—he'd been sweating from eating noodles, and the evening breeze outside was quite chilly.

“It should be fine.” The girl thought for a moment. “It was a long time ago when my older sister took me to the bank to open a children’s account and put my New Year’s money in there.”

"So you can freeze it at your house whenever you want, right?"

"..."

Jun Matsuoka walked across the intersection, with his senior following beside him, looking somewhat worried.

They entered the "My Basket" community supermarket, and Maki Yamami observed for a while before picking up a shopping basket from the doorway.

"You've never been to a supermarket before?" The boy was genuinely surprised.

"I haven't been here much. I usually go to convenience stores and shopping malls..." The girl looked to the side, a little embarrassed.

"They should be about the same, right?"

"...They are indeed about the same."

Matsueda Jun was about to continue walking inside when the senior student next to him seemed to suddenly realize something. She picked up a bunch of packaged bananas from the shelf by the door and walked towards the cashier first.

The boy stopped and stood there watching her talk to the cashier and take out a card from her pocket—it looked like a transportation card.

The girl quickly returned with the bananas in her arms, happily waving the green card in her hand at him.

"Luckily, the Suica card still works!"

Jun Matsueda looked at the tiny penguin in the corner of the card. "Did you make this yourself back then?"

"Hmm!" Yamami Maki's furrowed brows relaxed. "It was my older sister who took me to do it!"

Since the Suica card works, she figured her own little savings should be fine too.

The boy blinked. Was her father really that principled? Had he really only cut off the family's financial resources?

Or is it that the guy simply didn't care about these little things about his daughter?
In any case, it didn't matter; he looked into the bright depths of the supermarket.

"Then go buy your things yourself, I'll wait for you at the door."

The girl blinked in surprise.

"Is there a problem?" Jun Matsue looked into her bright eyes under the lamplight.

"Since you're going to live independently, you'll definitely need to adapt to these daily routines as soon as possible, right?"

“…Matsueda-kun is right.” Yami Maki nodded and stuffed the bananas she had just bought into the boy’s arms.

"Since it's no different from a convenience store, I'll definitely be fine on my own."

The boy watched as her light green dress swayed as she walked behind the wall-like shelves.

He held the girl's banana in his hand and took out his phone with his other hand.

It was almost nine o'clock, and usually by then I would already be in my apartment getting ready to wash up.

Bring some snacks back for Kurusu...

More than ten minutes later, Matsueda Jun saw Yamami Maki reappear in his field of vision—the senior was carrying a basket full of things and excitedly placed it on the cashier's counter.

The checkout process was a bit slow, and I don't know what went wrong. The cashier said a few words to the girl, and the boy looked at her awkwardly, nodded, and put his own items aside.

Could it be that Suica cards have also been suspended? Jun Matsue walked over.

However, after walking only a few steps, Yamami Maki paid the bill and walked towards him with her shopping bags.

The senior student blushed slightly. She took the banana from the boy's hand, put it in her bag, and whispered something to him.

"The cashier said I didn't have enough balance on my Suica card, so I had to take some things out..."

"I see," Jun Matsue thought, looking at the bulging plastic bag in her hand.

He already knew that his senior didn't pay much attention to prices when buying things.

As the boy stepped out of the automatic sensor door of "My Basket," he glanced at the girl next to him carrying a plastic bag—the senior was looking down at her right hand, seemingly uncomfortable from the tightly pulled plastic bag.

"Do you regret it now?" he asked softly.

Yamami Maki, who had been looking down, paused for a moment.

She then looked up, picked up the shopping bags with both hands, and smiled brightly at the night breeze at the intersection.

"You don't need to worry about the house security."

"Eating spicy food doesn't require anyone's permission."

"And nobody's watching whether I bite the straw or not..."

"I haven't had enough of this kind of life yet!"

(End of this chapter)