Lonely Rock: Love Songs Dedicated to the Stars

After getting off the train at the station, everyone met up with their homeroom teacher and headed together to the hotel that the school had booked.

After Yuma and Aikawa learned the address, they separated from Hoshika and Ueshiro to put their luggage away.

To be fair, the hotel room booked by the school was quite large; there were six boys in total in Yuzhen's room. The other four boys had arrived a little earlier than the two of them and were unpacking their things.

Yuma wasn't very familiar with the four of them; after exchanging greetings, she went off to pack her things. Aikawa, on the other hand, seemed to be having a good time chatting with them. If Yuma hadn't reminded them, they probably would have forgotten the meeting time.

"Is the first stop Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion)?"

After going downstairs to meet up with the two girls, the four of them had lunch together, and Yuma and Aikawa found out the schedule.

On the first day, the homeroom teacher led the class on a group tour. According to the school's arrangement, the first stop was Kinkaku-ji Temple, and then we would go to Nijo Castle.

"Senior Xingge, are there six people in your room too?"

Because Aikawa and Kamishiro were helping the teacher maintain order at the back of the line, Yuuma and Hoshika also walked with them at the very back of the class line.

"There are six of you, so it seems you are too." Xingge nodded. "Are you getting used to it?"

"Of course I'm not used to it. I can't sleep with my senior in my arms these next few nights."

"You'd better shut up."

Just as Yu-chan was speaking, several girls turned to look at him, as if they had overheard him. Hoshika quickly covered his mouth.

"You shouldn't talk about this kind of thing in public."

She only let go of his hand when she saw that no one else was paying attention to them.

"Okay, I won't say anymore. But you have to make it up to me when we get back."

Yu-chan wiped his mouth; it was too hot, and he could feel that Xing-ge was sweating.

"You didn't lose anything, why should I compensate you?"

"Who says I didn't suffer a loss? I can't sleep at all without hugging my senior now. It's all my senior's fault for giving me this bad habit."

Xingge glared at Youzhen, then ran ahead to find Shangcheng.

Did you drive her away?

Aikawa walked over to Yuma and patted him on the back.

“She won’t get angry over something so trivial.” Yuzhen was confident about this. “Just watch, she’ll be back in a bit.”

No sooner had Kenzaki Yuuma finished speaking than Hoshika returned from the shop ahead where she had bought a baseball cap. She stood on tiptoe, put the cap on Yuuma's head, and then pulled Yuuma away to Aikawa's side.

……

There weren't as many people at Kinkaku-ji as they had imagined, probably because it wasn't a holiday yet and most office workers were busy and didn't have time to go out and have fun.

The temple didn't seem very large. However, the weather had been quite nice these past few days. Although it was a bit hot, the sky was very clear, and the scenery of the entire site was quite beautiful, reflecting the surrounding trees and lake.

Yuzhen felt that this place was different from those popular tourist attractions. You didn't need to find a specific angle; you could take great photos anywhere.

"Senior, look this way."

Hearing Yuzhen's voice, Xingge turned around to look at him, and then realized that he had taken out his phone at some point and had already taken a picture of her.

"Wait, I wasn't ready yet." Xingge tried to snatch his phone to delete the photos, because she hadn't been prepared and the pictures would definitely not look good.

"Let me see..." Yuzhen hugged Xingge, holding her tightly in her arms, and then opened the photo she had just taken. "It's obviously very beautiful."

In the photo, Xingge stands in front of Mirror Lake, with the lake and Kinkaku-ji Temple in the distance behind her. Her hair is being blown by a gentle breeze, giving her a youthful look.

“Senior is very beautiful.” Yuzhen said, moving the photo to her private album. “Beautiful woman with beautiful scenery, I’ll save this.”

"Wait, why is your photo album locked?" Xingge broke free and glanced at him. "Let me see. You don't have some weird stuff in your collection, do you?"

"Absolutely not, don't worry, senior." Yuzhen's movement of the photos was just a habitual action; he couldn't very well say that they were all photos of Xingge that he had secretly taken.

“There’s definitely something wrong. Take a look at it when we get back to the hotel.”

"Ok."

Yuzhen outwardly agreed, but in reality, she planned to quickly create a new private album when Yuzhen wasn't paying attention to get away with it.

The group continued forward, slowly approaching the temple.

From a distance, the temple doesn't look very big because it's sandwiched between trees, but it looks completely different up close.

Yuma looked up at the Golden Pavilion from below. He'd heard that a lot of money had been spent rebuilding the place, and the gold leaf used on the walls was several times thicker than normal.

"What are you looking at?" Xingge came to his side and looked up like him, but couldn't see anything.

"I was just spacing out." Yuuma snapped back to reality. "What are you looking at, senpai?"

"I'm daydreaming along with you," Xingge replied irritably. "Let's go, catch up with the others."

……

Kinkaku-ji has three floors, each with a different style and a different name. At this point, Yuuma felt that being divided into such detailed sections wasn't necessarily a bad thing; at least, the fact that Kinkaku-ji was divided into such detailed sections would allow him to pad out the report he had to submit when he returned to school.

The only good thing about this place is its scenery, and it really is beautiful. This temple was once burned down because of its stunning beauty, and the current Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion) has been rebuilt.

In that fire, many of the temple's artifacts were damaged, but the golden phoenix on the roof was unharmed and is still in use after reconstruction. Yukio Mishima even used that incident as the basis for his novel, *The Temple of the Golden Pavilion*.

Youzhen had read that novel, but there were many things he couldn't understand. In fact, most novels here are like that; many things are written in an obscure and difficult-to-understand way.

After Yuma finished explaining all this to Hoshika, she quietly closed the search results on her phone when Hoshika turned back to look at Kinkaku-ji. How could anyone remember the stories of a tourist attraction so meticulously? Besides, Yuma wasn't the type of person who would actively seek out such things.

It's true that Yuuma has read *The Temple of the Golden Pavilion*. He used to read when he was bored in middle school, and unknowingly, he even finished reading Junichi Watanabe's *The Red Castle*, which could be considered his gateway novel. However, he now feels a bit disgusted when he thinks about the plot.

It's embarrassing to admit, but his mother found the book he had left on the shelf after reading it and confiscated it. After that, his father often lectured the two brothers on the importance of pure love.

"No wonder you know so much about Kinkaku-ji; you must have read books about it. That's impressive."

After listening to Youzhen recount her past experiences, Xingge felt that Youzhen was quite persevering. After all, she didn't like reading those obscure and difficult-to-understand things.

"But what kind of book is *The Red Castle*? Is it good?"

"Good-looking?" Yu Zhen was hard to say. That thing should be considered a classic, but it was indeed a bit difficult to explain. "Senior, you'd better not read it. It's hard to understand."

"Alright then." Xingge's thinking was quite simple: if Youzhen said it was hard to understand, then she definitely wouldn't understand it either. However, she still felt she should try it out; she wanted to have more in common with Youzhen in this area.

Chapter 60 School Trip (Part 3)

Yuma and Hoshika felt they hadn't explored Kinkaku-ji Temple much before the trip was over. To be honest, aside from the Golden Pavilion, the other attractions felt like filler. Would anyone really have the time to go and see the basin where the shogun who once lived there washed his hands after using the toilet?

The others didn't seem interested in those strange attractions either, so they just followed the teacher around for a couple of minutes without really listening to the explanations.

"Kenzaki, send me the photos you took when you get back."

Aikawa didn't find it interesting, so he didn't look at it carefully before moving on to the next attraction.

But he still had to write a report when he got back, so when he went to the next stop, he asked Yuma to send the photos he had taken to everyone.

"Okay, I'll post it in the group now. I'm afraid I'll forget it when I get back." Yuzhen posted all the photos she had taken in the group. "By the way, what's the next attraction again?"

When Aikawa heard Yuuma's question, he looked at the schedule.

"Next stop is Nijo Castle. Doesn't seem very interesting."

Yu-ma, like the other boys in his class, also found these places uninteresting. It was pretty much the same when he went out with Yu-yuki before. Even though Yu-yuki suggested going out, they would just visit the tourist attractions, take a couple of photos, post them in the family group chat, and then go back to the hotel to sleep.

Perhaps because it was a group activity, it was noisy when everyone was together, and Yuzhen felt that she couldn't calm down and appreciate it carefully.

With that thought in mind, Yuzhen followed everyone onto the bus.

The four of them sat at the back, with Hoshika to Yuuma's left and Aikawa to his right. Ueshiro sat next to Hoshika, a position she had carefully chosen after much deliberation. She felt she knew Hoshika and Yuuma well enough that sitting next to Yuuma at a time like this would make both of them uncomfortable.

After observing Kenzaki Yuuma, Uesugi discovered that this guy was actually an overly meticulous person; he always seemed to feel that he would cause trouble for others.

For example, once during a meeting in the school auditorium, a girl from another class was sitting behind him, and he would deliberately bend down a little, afraid of blocking her view. But the auditorium was a tiered classroom, so he couldn't block anyone. She didn't understand why Yuzhen had developed this personality. Was this guy someone who cared a lot about what others thought? Uehara didn't seem like it.

She glanced at Xingge, who was drowsy beside her, and then, taking advantage of the car's momentum as it turned, deliberately leaned against her, causing Xingge to fall onto Youzhen.

Hoshika had been feeling sleepy since morning, and on top of that, she had just finished visiting Kinkakuji Temple, so she felt very tired. She woke up a bit after leaning on Yuuma, but she didn't stand on ceremony with Yuuma. She gestured for Yuuma to lean over her and then closed her eyes to rest.

Sitting in the air-conditioned car, Aikawa couldn't help but nod.

As the car turned, he leaned towards Yuma, and Yuma caught his face with her hand.

"Hey, Kenzaki, why are you treating people differently?" Aikawa sat up straight and rubbed his neck.

"So what?" Yuzhen gently adjusted her body to make Xingge more comfortable. "Besides, I would do the same for any cute girl, but Xingge-senpai only has special privileges with me."

"You're really loyal, aren't you?" Aikawa leaned back in his seat and glanced at Yuma. "Now I know why so many girls like you."

……

The biggest attraction in Nijo Castle is probably the Ninomaru Palace, which has been preserved since the early Edo period. The floorboards inside make a distinct sound when you step on them, sounding like birdsong, and are known as the "Oriole Corridor".

"The art of language!" Yuzhen exclaimed after listening to the teacher's description of the floor.

"Why do you say that?" Xingge, who was standing to the side, was a little puzzled by his words.

“The teacher just said that the sound comes from the friction between the nails and the wooden planks under the floorboards.” Yuzhen stomped on the floor. “Isn’t that just because it’s been in disrepair for years? They make it sound so nice.”

"Hiss~, it really does seem so?" After hearing Youzhen's words, Xingge stomped the floor twice more. "Now that you mention it, I also feel that the sound doesn't sound like birdsong anymore."

The walls and doors inside the hall are adorned with paintings by various famous Kano school artists. Kenzaki Yuuma, however, had no knowledge of these paintings, nor had he bothered to learn about the Kano school. He only knew that he was about to take photos, and these paintings would definitely be included in the report.

"Did you come here just to write a report?" Xingge saw him about to start taking pictures again and tugged at his sleeve from behind. "Besides, you can't take pictures inside. Come with me for a walk."

"Sure, we're already on free time anyway. Where are you headed, senior?"

"Let's just wander around for now."

Hoshika pulled Yuuma away. Her purpose was simply to let Yuuma relax a bit; since arriving in Kyoto, he hadn't really looked at the scenery properly, focusing only on that report.

Yuzhen also realized that he seemed to be taking the report writing a bit too seriously. Even though he finally had a chance to go out and have fun with Xingge, he didn't spend much time with her.

He pulled the hem of his shirt, which Xingge was holding, from her hand, and then took her hand, which she hadn't had time to pull back.

"It feels like we're on a date right now." Yuma gently raised the hand she was holding with Hoshika.

“It’s a date, after all.” Xingge took two quick steps forward, keeping herself in front of Youzhen, determined to take control of the date.

Yuuma let her lead him around. Unfortunately, Hoshika couldn't understand the paintings, and each time she looked at Yuuma with pleading eyes. But Yuuma herself didn't quite understand them either.

The two wandered around aimlessly, only having a vague understanding, until Yuuma saw the painting of a pine tree and eagle on the fourth floor of the Ōhiro-ma. The powerful, ancient pine tree stretched across several walls, looking particularly imposing. This was also the most famous painting in Nijō Castle.

Inside the White Academy, there was a traditional Chinese ink painting. Although they couldn't understand it, the two of them lingered for quite a while when they saw it. With so many people around looking at it, their quick glance and walk away seemed rather tactless.

Aside from the paintings and a decent courtyard, there didn't seem to be anything particularly special inside, but surprisingly, Yuzhen didn't find it boring at all while strolling around with Xingge. He stood beside Xingge, watching her nod and nod after the explanations, even though she only vaguely understood them, and found her pretending to know something was really cute.