Lonely Rock: Love Songs Dedicated to the Stars

How could I have forgotten something like this at Yuzhen's house? This tube of ointment is still unopened.

"It should belong to Kita. We'll return it to her when she and Pochi come back."

Yuma sat listlessly in the chair.

"What's wrong with you? Why are you so listless today?" Xingge put down what she was holding and reached out to remove a piece of paper stuck to Youzhen's hair.

"You'll know once you try cleaning that room," Yuzhen said, then leaned forward and rested her head on the table.

When he entered the room in the morning, he found it to be quite messy. It seemed that Kita had been busy with something these past few days and hadn't cleaned much. There were some scraps of colored paper on the floor.

Yuma spent the morning airing out Kita's used blankets on the balcony, and collecting the clothes Nijika had lent Kita. Not knowing which pieces Kita had worn, she simply washed them all. Then she cleaned up the scraps of paper left on the floor.

When he finished cleaning the room and put away the pillows, he found a note that Kita had left under the pillows with a corner sticking out. Kita said that she was already very happy that Yuzuru had lent her the room and that she would clean it up herself later.

Yuma looked at her newly tidied room, sighed, and threw the note into the trash can. Kita is still a good kid.

"I see." Xingge nodded after listening to Youzhen's explanation. "Now I roughly know what she's been busy with."

"what?"

"Don't you remember? It's almost October now, it's the school festival."

Yuuma only remembered what happened after hearing Hoshika's explanation. Xiuhua's school festival was indeed approaching; so that's why there were so many scraps of paper in the room.

Based on Kita's personality, Yuuma could guess that she must have been actively involved in some activity, which was why she seemed so busy lately.

"The school festival at Pochi and Kita's school?"

Kenzaki Yuuma remembered Kita mentioning that her school took these kinds of events quite seriously and always tried to make them as lively as possible. It sounds like it'll be really interesting; she'll go check it out with Hoshika.

"Want to go take a look together then?"

It was Ijichi Hoshika who spoke first, extending an invitation to Yuuma.

"Are you trying to reminisce about your youth?" Yuzhen stood up from the table. "If I'm free, we can go together."

Why does it sound like I'm begging you?

……

The misunderstanding with Kita has been cleared up, but Pochi has been squatting in a corner ever since he returned from Kita's house.

Yuma and Hoshika heard Kita's description: it was Pochi who mustered up the courage to persuade her mother to let her continue playing in the band. Although Pochi spoke haltingly back then, Kita thought she was very cool.

Hearing her say that, Yuma and Hoshika understood that Pochi must have mustered up the courage to say something she felt ashamed about at the Xijia family, which led to her current social death state.

"By the way, Kita, is this yours?"

Yuma took the medicine out of her pocket and handed it to Kita.

Upon seeing the medicine, Kita snatched it away and quickly stuffed it into her bag. She glanced at Ryo and Pochi, making sure they weren't paying attention to her, before letting out a sigh of relief.

Kita's parents later visited the performance hall and discovered that there were indeed highly educated band members and lovely, youthful JK bandmates there.

Although seeing their daughter's attitude towards Ryo still made them a little worried, with Yuuma and Hoshika around, Yamada Ryo couldn't cause any trouble.

After that, Kita officially decided to start preparing for the college entrance exam; she wanted to go to university.

However, after seeing Kita's grades, Yuuma felt that she was not quite what he had imagined. Shouldn't Kita be the kind of all-around perfect, popular anime protagonist who is cheerful, academically excellent, and has strong interpersonal skills? How come her grades are so bad? And this is after Yuuma had given them pre-exam tutoring before. Did she stop studying after forming a band?

In short, at Hongxia's request, Yuzhen also began tutoring the children. Sadly, of the four, only Hongxia was someone who could make his studies relatively worry-free.

Boch didn't want to participate at first. Her dream was to make money with the band and then drop out of school. She felt that she didn't need to attend tutoring classes.

However, she was still forcibly pulled over by Yuzhen's words, "You don't want to fail your exams, repeat a year, or graduate late, right?"

Looking at Boqi, who was full of energy to graduate as soon as possible without repeating a grade, Yuzhen felt that she was doing quite well. If she could maintain this state, she should make a lot of progress, right? She should at least get a high school diploma.

"Um... you've worked hard too, and you've made progress."

Yuzhen finished correcting the exercises Boqi had just completed and handed them back to her. Yuzhen admitted that she had oversimplified things; Boqi's foundation was too weak, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that she needed to start from middle school level to catch up.

"Pochi, you still have a lot of room for improvement. Keep up the good work."

Boqi, who was sitting opposite him, took back his test paper. When he saw that all his hard work over the past few days had only resulted in guessing one more question correctly than before, his aura immediately dissipated, and he collapsed to the ground with a look of utter despair.

Liang, who was standing nearby, reacted quickly and grabbed the white spirit that was floating out of Boqi's mouth, stuffing it back into her mouth.

"Th-thank you, Liang Sang." Boqi snapped out of his daze and sat up straight immediately.

"It's alright, just treat me to dinner."

Looking at the two problem students sitting opposite him, Yuzhen felt that he was no longer qualified to be a teacher.

The two in front of him were a mix of people: one had such a poor foundation that he needed to start from junior high school to catch up, and the other was like a single-core processor who couldn't play bass after learning anything else. This gave him a bit of a headache, and he rubbed his temples.

Their teachers must be feeling incredibly desperate.

……

Ryo and Pochi had their heads crammed with knowledge by Yuuma yesterday and were still digesting it at home, so only Nijika and Kita were getting extra lessons today. They had just finished the practice questions Yuuma had found.

“There are so many things in Ijichi-senpai’s room.” Kita put down his pen during his break, looked around, and noticed a lot of things that didn’t seem like things Nijika would buy.

"Are these basses also Ijichi-senpai's?" Kita noticed the basses in the corner. "Ijichi-senpai can play bass?"

"No, it was left here to cool."

"Then, are those clothes yours, Senpai?" Kita noticed that Nijika's wardrobe wasn't closed properly, and the style of the clothes inside didn't seem to match Nijika's at all.

"Those are clothes that are meant to be worn in the cold."

"And what about these books and albums?"

"It's cold too."

"Then what here isn't something that belongs to Senior Liang?"

"Probably just Hongxia, her bed, and this table." Yuzhen, who was grading their completed test papers with her head down, looked up and chimed in after listening to their conversation.

"Why don't you offer yourself to Liang too? You've spoiled Liang too much, that's why she's so reckless."

Xingge opened the door and came in carrying a glass of juice. She had overheard the conversation between the three of them.

Xingge sat down next to Youzhen and gave him the juice she had just taken a sip of. It was originally meant for Youzhen, but she had just been thirsty and had taken a sip herself.

Chapter 78 You'll give her what she wants?

"Sister, you're one to talk! Your room is the same!" Hongxia retorted to her sister, unconvinced.

"My room is pretty normal, isn't it?" Xingge casually picked up the juice that Youzhen had just put down and took another sip. "How could it be the same as yours? I haven't had my room taken over."

"What's the manager's room like? I'd like to see it."

"Sister, can we go take a look?"

Hoshika glanced at Nijika and Kita, who were looking on expectantly, and Yuuma, who was sitting next to her. She figured they were all family, so it wasn't a problem if they wanted to watch.

"Sure, but don't touch anything inside."

"Great!"

Yuzhen was still grading papers, so she didn't go with the three of them.

"The shopkeeper's room has so many things too." Kita's eyes lit up as he looked around the room. "So the shopkeeper likes Ultraman?"

Kita saw the display case by the wall, which contained real bone carvings, soft vinyl figures, transformation devices, as well as many anime character figurines and some yo-yos that looked expensive.

Kita recognized a few characters, such as Hatsune Miku. But she couldn't understand why Hatsune Miku's figure was placed in the very center alongside Ultraman, who had many stars on his chest.

"Actually, all of these are Kenzaki Yuuma's."

Yuzhen used to have quite a collection, but after moving next door, he found that his room was smaller than his old one and couldn't fit the two display cases. The adjacent rooms, one to be used as a guest room and the other to be used as a music room with added soundproofing, were also unsuitable for storing his belongings.

So at first he only put one of them in the living room, but it took up quite a bit of space.

Later, the two got back together, and Xingge said she could put it in her room since her room was quite empty, so she moved it there.

"Is that so?" Kita's curiosity was satisfied, but it quickly grew. "Was the shop manager a keyboardist before?"

She saw the guitar and tomahawk keyboard leaning together next to the display case.

“I used to play guitar.” Xingge walked to the bedside and sat down. “The keyboard belongs to Kenzaki Yuuma. He forgot this tomahawk here a couple of days ago and didn’t take it with him.”

A couple of nights ago, Youzhen remembered that she had a social media account.

So when he remembered, he grabbed his tomahawk, ran over to Xingge, put the keyboard and guitar together, took a picture, and then posted it on social media.

This is the account he used to post cover videos. He also used it as a personal account when he was in a band. However, he hasn't updated it for a long time after the band disbanded. When this photo suddenly appeared, the band's old fans thought they had reconciled and were going to reunite.

However, Yuma and Hoshika were busy that night and had no time to care about those people's comments.

The next morning, Yuma got up to make breakfast, then woke up Nijika, having forgotten the keyboard in Hoshika's room.

"So, is that shirt also Kenzaki's?" Kita pointed to the white shirt on Hoshika's bed, which was clearly men's clothing.

Hongxia also looked at Xingge's bed, and it was indeed Youzhen's clothes. She remembered that Youzhen was wearing that shirt yesterday.

Xingge looked back and realized she hadn't seen the shirt when she packed up that morning, and hadn't thrown it in the laundry basket. "This...this is..."

"So this is it." After grading the test papers, Youzhen also came to Xingge's room. He immediately saw the white shirt on Xingge's bed. "No wonder I couldn't find it."

After he finished speaking, he took the garment and threw it into the washing machine, intending to wash all the clothes together.

When Yuzhen took the clothes, two plush toys that had been covered by them were revealed. One was a pink bunny doll, and the other was a panda doll. They both looked a little old, but they were very clean.

“These two dolls are so cute.” Kita said when he saw the two adorable plush dolls. “I remember now, Kenzaki-nii mentioned before that these were gifts he gave to the shop manager, right? The shop manager loves Kenzaki-nii so much that he has kept the dolls he gave him until now.”

"I just feel it's a pity to throw them away." Xingge quickly covered the two dolls with the blanket.

"Sister, don't be stubborn. There are still a lot of photos of your brother on your old phone. I know them all." Hongxia knew Xingge inside and out, so of course she knew what she was thinking. Otherwise, she wouldn't have wanted the two of them to get back together so much.

"Wait, how did you know?!"

“I didn’t know before, but I do now.”

Hoshika noticed that Nijika was getting better and better at playing pranks; it must be Kenzaki Yuuma who corrupted her.

Hongxia noticed that after hearing her mention the photos, her sister seemed to glance at the bedside table, indicating that she had hidden the old phone there.

"I have a feeling that someone is talking badly about me."

Yuma had just thrown her clothes into the washing machine when she came back and overheard Hoshika and Nijika talking about her.

“Nobody here is talking bad about you.” Xingge watched as Youzhen walked over and sat down next to her. “Don’t forget to take your keyboard with you tonight; it’s taking up too much space here.”