Am I being simulated by their love affair.

Chapter 738, "White Line Flow," has been released.

October 19th, Sunday.

When Jun Matsuoka woke up in bed, the bedroom, with the curtains drawn, was dimly lit, making it difficult to distinguish between day and night.

"..."

After staring blankly at the light gray ceiling for a while, the first thought that surfaced in the boy's mind after he came to his senses wasn't what to have for breakfast, but rather Natsumi Imokawa's confession from the previous afternoon—

A pale yellow floral sundress swayed in the breeze, and the riverside girl's blushing smile shone brightly against the twilight sky.

Sitting up in bed, using the gray walls to hide the image of the girl's innocent and beautiful eyes in his mind, Jun Matsue drew back the curtains and stepped out of the bedroom, letting the gentle sunlight wash over the empty room.

After a quick wash, he walked into the empty living room, took out a few sweet potatoes from the refrigerator, washed them in the kitchen, placed them on a tray, and put them into the flat oven that came with the stove.

Today's breakfast is a sweet potato salad bowl.

After setting the oven temperature and time, the man didn't change out of the short-sleeved shirt he was wearing as pajamas. Instead, he changed his shoes in the entryway and walked out of the apartment.

It was a little past seven in the morning, and the sky was not very bright. Jun Matsue stepped onto the path outside the apartment building and took a deep breath of the cool, damp morning air.

"It should be less than 20 degrees..."

The boy quickly started jogging, using his body heat to dispel the chill of autumn.

The color of the beech trees by the roadside was already a mixture of orange and yellow green. A few dry leaves fell to the ground and were blown away by the air currents stirred up by sneakers.

Jun Matsue doesn't have a habit of jogging in the morning; he commutes to and from school and works by bike every day, and his daily exercise is sufficient. But after waking up today, he suddenly had the urge to go for a run.

As if pressing the pause button on himself before getting into the routine of the day, the boy felt the subtle and vivid changes of the season while sorting through the trivial thoughts in his mind.

After taking a photo together by the Arakawa River yesterday, he and Natsumi Imokawa quickly boarded the train home. Perhaps because there were more people around, the girl was no longer as bold and straightforward as before, and reverted to the Natsumi Imokawa he knew.

So there were no more stories on the way home. After waving goodbye to the girl who got off the bus at Xidiwa, this unexpected afternoon officially came to an end.

So how did I inexplicably end up following Imogawa's lead?
Jun Matsue stared at the sparse clouds overhead, reflecting on his own weak armor from yesterday.

As expected, the problem lay in his own mindset. He turned around at the intersection and concluded.

Imokawa doesn't have Tomatsu's complex thoughts, nor is she as assertive and proactive as Mochizuki and Kurusu, which makes it hard for me to be on guard.

I have to adjust my mindset... The boy shook his head, and the wind blowing in his face swayed along with him.

Even though the scales in his heart had long been unbalanced, he could still tell that his feelings for Natsumi Imokawa were not yet at the point where he wanted to spend his life with her.

So although I feel a little sorry for Imokawa, given his current chaotic situation, he definitely can't accept this sentiment...

Returning to the apartment with slightly heavy steps, Jun Matsue was greeted by a young girl's face peeking out from the kitchen when she opened the door to room 507.

"Where did Songzhi go so early in the morning?" Laixi Youse wiped the water droplets from his face.

"When I woke up, I found you weren't home, and my phone was in the bedroom. If I hadn't seen the sweet potatoes in the oven in the kitchen, I would have thought you had run away from home!"

"Why would I run away from home?" The boy glanced at her. "I just wanted to go for a run."

"How would I know!" Miss Idol scoffed, peering through the kitchen doorway as he walked past her.

"Maybe that guy Mochizuki Haruka kidnapped you in the middle of the night while I was asleep!"

"..." Jun Matsue ignored her, found a change of clothes, and went into the bathroom.

When he returned to the living room after changing into a dry long-sleeved shirt, Yosei Kurusu was already sitting at the dining table with two bowls of sweet potato salad.

Scooping up a spoonful of salad, the girl opened her mouth wide and put it in her mouth. The sweet, soft, and creamy sweet potato puree was studded with chopped hard-boiled egg, cucumber, and purple cabbage. She nodded in satisfaction.

Autumn is the perfect season to enjoy sweet potatoes, which she carefully selected with Songzhi a couple of days ago while shopping at the supermarket.

The boy also took a bite and raised an eyebrow.

"Why does it taste a little sweet and sour?"

"I added yogurt!" Yosei Kurusu said, as if showing off. "Isn't it pretty good?"

What a strange combination. Matsueda Jun chewed it, but thankfully the taste was actually not bad.

"Why are you up so early today, Kurusu? Do you have plans for Sunday?"

The girl nodded and shook her head, her mouth full of a spoon, and spoke indistinctly.

"It's just going to work."

"Are you that busy?"

"It's all because of the pine branches!" She gave the boy a lively glare.

"Once the new song is confirmed, we need to quickly record, mix, and master it. There's also a whole series of release and promotional work to prepare!"

Jun Matsueda paused in his breakfast. "So, where are you guys at now?"

"The accompaniment has been recorded by professionals." The girl put down her spoon and straightened up. "As for the vocals, I recorded them a few times before, and I'm reasonably satisfied with them."

"I went to the agency today to record the vocals again and to check with Sister Ju about the preparations for the new song."

The boy thought for a moment, then asked, "Do you want me to come with you?"

"Huh?" Kurusu Yosei stared at him with wide eyes.

"You don't need to go see Tomatsu Tomohisa today?"

"Tomatsu has something to do today," Jun Matsueda waved his hand.

Actually, Tomatsu regretfully informed him last night that his mother was off today and planned to take him to get a body treatment.

"Then I'll go to the agency later!" Miss Idol immediately changed her mind.

"...Is it really that hasty?"

"It doesn't matter!" the girl puffed out her chest.

"Not everything needs to be confirmed at the company, and this is my own initiative to work overtime!"

So the two of them had a more leisurely breakfast time. After eating the sweet and sour sweet potato salad, Jun Matsue put away his roommate's bowl and went into the kitchen.

After washing the dishes, he returned to his bedroom and found his phone on the bedside table.

The screen lit up just then; it was a message from Tomatsu Yuka.

The girl took a picture of her breakfast that day, which was a cereal salad similar to the boy's. Across the table, she could see a slender arm wearing a wristwatch, which was probably her mother.

"Mom said we'll go to yoga first thing in the morning to exercise, and then she'll take me to a spa for a massage and skincare. I'm really looking forward to it!"

"I feel like skincare is a bit unnecessary," Jun Matsueda replied as he walked towards the living room.

"Really?" Tomatsu Yuka sent a cute bunny emoji. "I think yoga is a bit unnecessary."

"After all, I was supposed to exercise today anyway~"

This guy… The boy shook his head and put his phone in his pocket.

Yosei Kurusu also came out of the bedroom carrying her tablet. It was getting cold, so the girl had changed into a striped, fitted long-sleeved shirt, but she was still wearing plain black shorts, revealing her long, white legs.

Miss Idol walked into the living room first, then turned around and threw herself onto the sofa.

"What's Songzhi going to do this morning?" She put her legs up on the sofa and opened her tablet.

"I need to contact Sister Ju first to confirm the shooting style of the MV."

"You just do your thing." Jun Matsue pushed her bare little feet away and sat down on the other side of the sofa.

The girl adjusted her posture, unceremoniously placing her feet on his legs. She leaned against the corner of the sofa, put on her headphones, and comfortably began working.

The boy glanced at her, ignoring his own bare, pink and healthy feet, and silently picked up the remote to turn on the TV.

The red logo of the YouTube platform quickly appeared on the lit-up TV screen, and Jun Matsueda found the account opened by Natsumi Imokawa.

Imokawa's YouTube profile picture is still that plush penguin with a camera hanging on it, and her channel name is "Imokawa's Camera," which is simple and straightforward.

The girl's channel has a few videos, including a short sunset she filmed before, as well as a performance video of the band "Unit 2"—the previous band documentary was posted on "Unit 2's" account, not on her own channel.

It turns out that Imokawa had been planning to shoot a music video for "Moment," but it all fell through after he left... The boy felt a little guilty.

He used the remote control to open the latest video titled "White Line Flow". The video cover showed a clear river with a few cherry blossom petals floating in the center, reflecting the clear blue sky and the pure white clouds.

A sense of regret yet beauty arises spontaneously.

"Imokawa is indeed very talented..." Matsueda Jun nodded and pressed play.

The short film opens with the gates of a high school. Students in uniforms walk out of the gates, holding cylindrical tubes tied with ribbons—their graduation certificates.

It was early spring, and cherry blossoms were already in bloom on both sides of the avenue that ran across the school gate. The school was located by the river, and the wind at the gate was always strong. Large, delicate pink petals fell from the swaying branches, fluttering past people's eyes.

The camera focuses on a young boy and girl walking out of the school gate. They walk through the crowd, avoid the noise, and come to the riverbank a little further away.

"Everyone's already preparing for the 'white line flow'..."

The girl, clutching her graduation certificate, looked up at the bridge across the riverbank. Sunlight illuminated her pure and beautiful face, and her long, straight black hair swayed gently behind her.

She is Tomatsu Tomoka, but here, the girl's name is "Konno An".

"Kashiwabara—" the boy on the bridge waved to the boy next to her, "Come on over here!"

"You guys go first!" the boy, who was holding onto the railing, shouted, cupping his right hand to his mouth. "Don't worry about me and Xiaoxing!"

Konno Anzu remained silent, staring blankly at the profile of her childhood friend beside her.

His features were clean and bright in the sunlight, retaining the handsome and dashing air of his youth.

The girl thought she could keep watching like this for a very long time, but when graduation came, she realized how unstable her planned future was.

Like a snowflake, a cherry blossom petal, so fragile and easily broken.

The boy who attracted so much attention was none other than Jun Matsueda, but here he is called "Hikaru Kashiwabara".

The handsome young man in the sunlight turned around and silently gazed at the face of his childhood sweetheart.

Only when the people on the bridge began to make noise, and a white ribbon made of a scarf shimmered with silver light as it floated past the two of them in the river, did the girl smile sweetly.

"Don't make that face, today is our graduation day!"

“…Yes.” The boy nodded vigorously.

But looking at the smiling face that couldn't hide his sadness, his nose still stung with tears.

"Let's go over there." He took the girl's hand and walked away into the distance. "No one will bother us there."

The gentle-looking girl obediently took her first steps.

The camera moves, but the footage slows down, capturing the moment the two walk through the cherry blossom avenue.

As the shadow of a petal brushed across the boy's cheek, his clear voice, now possessing a magnetic quality that was no longer childish, rang in the ears of the audience.

"Yesterday it was snowing heavily, a rare occurrence in March, but today the sun is shining so brightly—it's as if the weather in Tokyo is giving way to our graduation ceremony."

"But looking into Xiaoxing's eyes, I began to miss the heavy snow that fell before today—"

"If it continues to snow in Tokyo, will her departure be delayed?"

"Her soft hand trembled in my palm, and we both knew the answer."

The scene suddenly shifts to a classroom, where a boy, holding his graduation certificate, follows a girl to the podium and signs his name on the blackboard.

Hikaru Kashiwahara.

The camera pans to the left, as if following the boy's gaze—the girl's slender fingers hold a piece of chalk, leaving delicate handwriting on the blackboard.

Gonano apricot.

"The first day that snow stopped falling this year was the day my classmate Konno and I graduated from high school."

"It was also the day my neighbor of six years, Konno An, moved away from Tokyo."

"So I'm going to confess my feelings to Xiaoxing later."

"And then she rejected me."

The two walked away from the camera, the image falling steadily until it froze on the river reflecting their figures.

A few cherry blossoms drifted down, creating ripples that disturbed the clear blue sky and drifting white clouds on the river's surface.

Only then did the title of the short film appear in the center of the screen, in pure white, delicate font with slightly crooked strokes, like the immaturity unique to adolescence—

"White line flow".

Yosei Kurusu, who was watching TV, had already taken off his headphones.

"What is Songzhi looking at?" She sat up and nudged the arm of the person next to her.

"The short film that Imokawa filmed before, the one where you played a minor role."

"Natsumi-chan posted it already?" The girl immediately put down her tablet and took the remote control from the boy.

"Play it again from the beginning, I didn't see the beginning!"

Nearly an hour later, the two people in front of the television breathed a sigh of relief, and Jun Matsuoka looked up with some emotion.

"This time, Imokawa has really done something remarkable..."

Even though the image on the screen was his own face and the voice he heard was his own, he could clearly feel the youthful days of a boy named "Kashiwabara Hikaru".

From the first scene filled with regret and bittersweet first love, to the final scene where she stands alone by the riverbank near her high school, feeling utterly alone and dreamlike, the story told through the girl's lens is so real and moving.

"But I only get one shot!" Yosei Kurusu complained, patting the cushion on his lap.

"It's just a profile shot blending into the crowd—the kind you wouldn't even notice if you didn't look closely!"

"Isn't this what extras are like?" The boy gave her a helpless look.

"..." The girl stopped talking, picked up her tablet, stood up, and walked towards her bedroom.

"what happened?"

Jun Matsue watched her retreating figure, knowing that Kurusu wasn't the type to get angry over something like this.

"I'm going to sing!" Miss Idol went into the bedroom to change her clothes.

"After watching Natsumi-chan's video, I have an urge to sing my heart out!"

The boy couldn't help but smile. "That's a good thing."

After changing his clothes and leaving the bedroom, Yosuke Kurusu took a bottle of freshly prepared honey water from Jun Matsueda, who was coming out of the kitchen, and hurried towards the entrance hall.

Before leaving the apartment, she suddenly remembered something, turned around and said to the boy.

"It seems like not many people are watching Natsumi-chan's short video. I'll share it for her later."

Jun Matsueda blinked in surprise.

Before he could speak, the girl pushed open the door and walked out of the room.

"I'm going to record a song! I'll be back early tonight!"

The sound of footsteps faded into the distance. The boy added, "Be careful on your way," as he looked at the closed door. He sat back on the sofa and found the penguin icon on his phone.

"I've seen your video 'White Line Flow' on YouTube, and the finished product looks pretty good."

“Very good!” he added.

"Really?" the girl replied quickly. "I'm also very satisfied with this final version!"

"Really." The boy glanced at the now quiet entryway.

"There's one more thing. Kurusu said he wants to help you share this so you can get more views."

"Huh?!" He was met with a shocked expression from a goofy penguin.

Jun Matsueda put down his phone and looked at the frozen image on the television screen.

How could Natsumi Imokawa, who can make films like this, be such an awkward person when it comes to confessing her feelings?
He was puzzled.

(End of this chapter)