Living in Tokyo, all I want to do is laze around.

Perhaps because he was used to her agreeing to whatever he asked, her current shaking of her head and refusal left him feeling somewhat at a loss.

"Hanabi, what's wrong?"

Hanabi Hanamaru kept her head down and didn't say anything.

"Honey, please don't ignore me."

"Wife."

"Wife..."

"..."

"Wife..."

"Kai-kun, can you do Hanabi a favor?"

"Let alone just one, just..."

"Hanabi wants to live separately from Kai for a year."

separate...?

Another year of separation!?

Are you kidding me? They haven't even been married for a month yet.

"No, no, this absolutely cannot be done."

Hanabi Hanamaru suddenly looked up: "Then... ten days will do, ten days it is."

Ten days?

Ten days is fine, just over a week.

Kai Uesugi sighed in relief: "But why should we do this?"

Hanabi Hanabi didn't answer first, but instead raised her eyes and looked at him: "Just now, when Hanabi told Kai-kun that we were going to separate, did Kai-kun feel very flustered?"

"Panic, of course I'm panicked."

"This shows that Kai still cares about Hanabi, but after getting married, Hanabi is with Kai every day, and Kai might... get tired of it, so... it would be better to separate for a while."

Uesugi Kai was silent for a moment, then said, "What if we go back home?"

"Hanabi will still do the same as before, and she will agree to all of Kai-kun's requests... It's just that it's been such a short time, and Hanabi is worried... Kai-kun... when you see Hanabi again... will you still have feelings of liking for her?"

“Definitely,” Uesugi Kai read aloud.

"Kai-kun... ten days isn't a long time... it'll give us a little time to calm down."

Why did she suddenly say all this?

Is there something I've been doing wrong lately?

Or is it that she... no longer loves herself?

Upon hearing Hanabi's soft and gentle voice, for some reason, Kai Uesugi agreed against his will.

Perhaps I've relied on her too much lately, indulging in her warmth and enjoying her beauty.

Gradually, these things became natural.

......

Ten days.

Let these ten days become a buffer period after the wedding.

During the ten days she was away, I missed her even more.

Hanabi Hanamaru packed her bags, put on a thin red coat and a beret, and stood at the door of her house with a small suitcase, ready to leave.

What are you going to do?

Hanamaru Hanabi shook her head.

She turned to look at Uesugi Kai standing in the house, the glimmer in his violet eyes still so captivating.

She looked at him for a while, then turned around, lowered her head, and said to him:

"No matter what Kai-kun thinks... Hanabi will always love him and is willing to wait for him forever. Ten days isn't a long time, and Hanabi has already asked for ten days off from school..."

After saying that, she turned and left.

......

The corridor was empty, and the girl's white dress had disappeared.

Ten days is indeed not a long time.

But as Uesugi Kai watched her disappearing figure, he always felt a pang of parting, a feeling like the cold, stinging pain of emptying his stomach, stuffing it with ice, and then resealing it.

Sigh... how did things suddenly turn out like this?

Kai Uesugi closed the door to his house, went back to his bedroom, lay down, and stared at the ceiling.

She didn't say where she was going.

The goal was to prevent myself from finding out about her again.

Now, thinking about it carefully... I shouldn't have agreed to her request.

But this was Hanabi-chan's request... Her tone was so gentle, with a hint of weakness.

He couldn't refuse her.

Because of what happened when we were kids... I always feel guilty towards her, and I always agree to her requests.

Conversely, she knew that her requests would be granted.

Therefore, she rarely mentioned to Kai Uesugi what she wanted.

She was always the little follower who stayed by my side since I was little, doing whatever she could to help me and bringing me warmth wherever she could...

During these ten days apart, I should take the time to regroup.

Thinking of these things, Uesugi Kai cheered himself up, changed his clothes, and tidied his appearance.

Then...

Off we go to school!

If my wife doesn't make breakfast, I'll just have to make do with something from the convenience store.

Unfortunately, not long after he left the convenience store on his bicycle, he encountered his first problem.

It seems we're running out of money.

Holding the bread in his hand, he opened his wallet and counted the money.

"One, two, three... three 1000 yen bills, two 500 yen coins, two 10 yen coins, totaling... 4020 yen."

As Kai Uesugi, sitting on the bicycle seat, closed his wallet, he realized the seriousness of the problem.

My wife didn't give me any pocket money when she left.

He spent almost all of his savings when he bought the house.

The remaining 300,000 yen.

I bought a guitar worth over 200,000 yen, and paid for a week's worth of hotel expenses during the social gathering, which amounted to 102,000 yen.

After getting home, there were small expenses like grocery shopping and buying desserts for Hanabi-chan...

Of the 200 million yen I earned, only a little over 4,000 yen remains...

More than four thousand!

Still in Tokyo!

Ten days! How are we supposed to survive?!

Borrow from your parents?

No, they'll ask where the fireworks went.

Borrow from a classmate?

Ten days should be enough time if you're careful with your spending.

But Uesugi felt... he couldn't bring himself to ask his classmates for money.

Moreover, he needs to buy a lot of meat to eat every day for his exercise, and meat prices have been very high recently.

It's not good to borrow too much from classmates.

Forget it... I'll just do some odd jobs and earn some pocket money.

With the bread she had just bought in the bicycle basket, Uesugi Kai rode all the way to the University of Tokyo campus.

After parking my bicycle, I took my laptop to the classroom of the Faculty of Arts at Southeast University and found a seat in the back row.

He started looking for jobs online.

Students began to enter the lecture hall one after another.

"morning."

"Morning."

"morning."

Good morning, Totsuka.

After greeting her classmates, Totsuka Katsura saw Uesugi Kai using a computer in the back row and sat down next to him.

"Starting to study so early... um... are you looking for a job?"

When Totsuka Katsura glanced at his computer screen, she saw the words "social recruitment" in his search bar.

[Network Operations Specialist]: [Female] [Monthly Salary: 25 yen or more] [4-2-1 Hirasawa, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo]

【贸易营业员】：【中文商务对话】【月薪20-70万円】【东京港区赤坂3-6-4】

[Real Estate Sales Representative]: [Easy Japanese conversation] [No experience required] [Monthly salary 18 yen + various allowances] [1-2-4 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo]

......