My love index is at its maximum.

She suddenly started singing, which startled Tazaki.

Oh, the mournful autumn wind!

If you have feelings, please tell people.

There was a man who was eating saury alone at dinner tonight, lost in deep thought.

Pacific saury, Pacific saury, eating Pacific saury with a drizzle of sour lime juice is a custom from his hometown.

Tsukasa Tazaki rested his chin on his hand, listening intently to her singing.

He knew this poem, "The Song of the Saury," was a poem, but he had never heard it sung. The author was Haruo Sato. Yes, the same Haruo Sato who fought with Jun'ichirō Tanizaki over Tanizaki's wife. And this poem was written by Haruo Sato during that time.

A woman found this habit strange.

She probably has no idea that she was having dinner with him while drinking lime juice!

A wife abandoned by her husband, a husband who betrays her.

The daughter, who lacked a father's love, sat at the dinner table, hesitant to touch her chopsticks.

He wouldn't ask a woman who wasn't his mother for the saury intestines she liked.

Dinner under the streetlights, the room shrouded in curtains casts a blurry shadow, from which a melodious, ethereal female voice drifts, carrying an unreal, sorrowful quality.

The dark clouds dispersed, and the moonlight illuminated the raindrops.

A stray cat leaped out of the damp garbage heap, dodging car headlights. The sound of its paws splashing through the puddles was inaudible; moonlight shone on its wet fur, making it look like it was sprinkled with salt.

Chapter 141 Gift Making, Kuriyama Sakura also took the opportunity to sleep in the bed.

After singing, Kuriyama Sakura ate the food with relish, and then drank three bowls of clam soup.

“It’s delicious,” she said.

Tsukasa Tazaki nodded. "Don't even look at who made it."

As for why she sang "An Autumn Afternoon," he didn't ask. There were only two possible reasons: either she was reminded of her family situation, or she was using the opportunity to criticize Tsukasa Tazaki as a scumbag like Jun'ichirō Tanizaki.

It's more likely that two reasons combined led her to sing.

Tsukasa Tazaki didn't bother to explain.

First, they couldn't defend themselves, and second, they didn't care at all how others viewed them, even if the other party was Kuriyama Sakura.

The two remained silent for a while, the room filled with the aroma of leftover fish.

Kuriyama Sakura chewed on a crisp piece of onion, glanced up at him, and said, "Say something, or it'll be boring."

"say what?"

"up to you."

Without even thinking, Tsukasa Tazaki blurted out, "Your singing voice is quite nice."

"Let's not talk about that."

"Hmm...you're quite pretty."

"How is it beautiful?"

"It's like ice melting in water."

"baffling."

Kuriyama Sakura let out a short sigh, as if drawing a period at the end of a sentence.

After the meal, Tsukasa Tazaki cleared the table, wiped it clean, and was washing the dishes in the sink when Sakura Kuriyama handed him a bag of grapes: "Wash them while you're at it."

"How can a guest order the host around?"

Kuriyama Sakura chuckled lightly, adopting the air of a spoiled young lady, and said, "First, entertaining guests is the host's duty. Second, last time at my house, didn't you act like a guest at all?"

"I'd rather die than go downstairs to open the door for you again!"

Tsukasa Tazaki washed the bowls, dried them with a towel, and put them in the sterilizer. Then he carefully washed the grapes on a plate.

Kuriyama Sakura moved to the window and drew back the curtains, their color faded just right by the sun. The view outside was beautiful; she could see the brightly lit skyscrapers of Nishi-Shinjuku in the distance.

No matter the season or the weather, that building complex is breathtakingly beautiful.

Perhaps... he also sits by the window every night and looks over there?

The moment this thought arose, a scene immediately appeared in Kuriyama Sakura's mind.

In the quiet of the night, a young man sits by the window with a book in his hand, a steaming cup of coffee on the windowsill. He occasionally glances at the book, occasionally looks at the night view, his only companion the moths that circle the chandelier.

She thought to herself that this might not be such a bad thing.

"The grapes are here."

Tsukasa Tazaki washed the grapes and brought them out, blinking in confusion.

Kuriyama Sakura sat on his bed and beckoned to him like a servant: "Bring it over for me to eat."

"No...that's my bed!"

"Oh."

"Is this all you're going to do?"

"Otherwise?" Kuriyama Sakura asked with a light laugh, "Or, you could carry me out the door?"

With a sour face, Tsukasa Tazaki placed the grapes next to her, then turned and sat down at his desk.

"Do you have any books? Throw one over here."

"what book?"

"Whatever, I'm not picky."

Tsukasa Tazaki casually tossed her a copy of Alexandre Dumas fils's "La Dame aux Camélias".

“I’ve read the original French version of this book several times.” Kuriyama Sakura placed the book on the windowsill. “Could we get a less well-known one?”

"..."

Tsukasa Tazaki wasn't a book collector; he usually borrowed books from the library. Occasionally he would buy a few, but he would sell them to secondhand bookstores after reading them. So, he had very few books in his room, only two extracurricular reading materials besides Dante's poetry collection.

"I don't believe you can speak Chinese!"

Kuriyama Sakura caught the Chinese edition of "Zhu Ziqing's Prose Collection" that he threw to her, casually flipped through a few pages, and chuckled sarcastically: "I'm going to buy some oranges. You stay here and don't move."

His standard Mandarin was much better than Tazaki Tsukasa's standard Cantonese before he received accent correction.

There are indeed many perverts among Japanese high school students...

Tazaki Tsukasa muttered something to himself, then turned around and began making a folding fan.

I spread out a piece of draft paper and practiced calligraphy with my newly bought brush and ink.

【indomitable】

These four words were repeated over and over again.

After practicing a hundred times, his calligraphy skills reached a high level of proficiency. He didn't stop and continued practicing.

In the stillness of the night, Kuriyama Sakura turned her head and looked at him. Under the pale, energy-saving light, half of his focused profile was bright, and the other half was dark.

The wind blew the raindrops against the windowpane, making a very slight sound.

A soft snore slowly began to sound.

[Calligraphy Skill Experience +1]

Current skill level: Proficient (1000/1000)

[Calligraphy (Proficient) → Calligraphy (Professional)]

[Current Skill Level: Class (0/10000)]

Professional level means you can make a living with this skill.

Tsukasa Tazaki put down his brush and stretched his aching wrist.

Next, he wants to upgrade his painting skills to a professional level.

Although his skill level was high enough to produce a decent drawing, this was a gift for his father-in-law, so he naturally had to put more thought into it. He was usually a lazy person, but when it came to those around him, he still adhered to the principle that "if you have the ability, you should try your best to do it."

"Oh, right, Kuriyama-kun."

Tazaki Tsukasa glanced at his watch and turned to look at him: "It's already past nine o'clock, you... are you asleep?"

Kuriyama Sakura, covered by his thin summer blanket, happened to turn to face him, showing no signs of waking up. Her eyes and brows held their usual cool indifference, but perhaps because she was fast asleep, her expression was as serene as a child's.

wack……

Isn't she afraid of doing something illegal?

Tsukasa Tazaki shook his head and stood up to stretch his body in the room.

To avoid waking her, I took off my shoes and walked barefoot back and forth on the floor.

In the stillness of the night, the only sound was the occasional ticking of the refrigerator's thermostat.

After drinking a glass of water, Tazaki Tsukasa returned to the bedside and looked at Kuriyama Sakura. She was probably a little tired, sleeping soundly, her body as still as a frozen stray cat. If you listened closely, you could hear her soft breathing.

Her schoolbag was on the side of the bed, with black stockings draped over it, and she had only eaten a few of the washed grapes.

Tsukasa Tazaki wrote "You're quite cute when you're asleep" on a note, slipped it through the gap in his schoolbag, and went back to his desk to start drawing.

The scratching sound of paintbrushes became the dominant tone in the room.

Around 11 PM, I leveled up my drawing skills to the professional level.

Tsukasa Tazaki began making folding fans.

The bamboo materials he bought had already been boiled, dried, and polished; he only needed to paint and assemble them himself.

Unfolding a custom-sized sheet of paper, I held my breath and concentrated on conceiving the idea, using Zheng Banqiao's "Orchid and Bamboo Painting" as a model, and began to paint.

On a massive, sloping cliff, several clumps of orchids and a few arrow bamboos grow side by side from the same root. The steepness of the cliff, the purity of the orchids, and the resilience of the bamboo intertwine and echo each other, giving people a sense of refined elegance and natural beauty.

After finishing the drawing, I wrote the four Chinese characters "百折不挠" (unyielding) on ​​the side of the main image in running-cursive script.

After the ink has dried, use special glue to attach the fan frame ribs to the back of the drawing paper, fasten the middle fan rib, and you're done.