Page 16
Page 16
"Hmph." Kimura Hama put a finger to his lips and looked at Hashimoto Arina: "That boy became the light that illuminated your dark life. Please cherish it. After all, life is short and you don't often have the chance to meet someone you can love for a lifetime."
"Hey, you've really become annoying." Kimura Hama pouted. "What's with this subtle annoyance?"
She smiled as she spoke and bowed deeply to Kimura Hama: "Thank you."
"Perhaps I can extend his life..." Kimura Hama suddenly spoke, but before he could finish, a string of fireworks suddenly rose into the sky, tearing through the darkness and blooming beautiful flowers in the air.
Hashimoto Arina's attention was immediately drawn to the fireworks in the sky, the light shining on her cheeks.
However, the beauty of fireworks is only fleeting.
Once the sky had returned to darkness, Hashimoto Arina turned to Kimura Hama and asked, "What did you just say?"
Hama Kimura looked away from the sky and shook his head: "Fireworks are beautiful because they are fleeting."
“Ever since you became a professor in the Faculty of Letters, you’ve become quite the chuunibyou (a Japanese term for someone with delusions of grandeur).” Hashimoto Arina shook her head, then immediately put on a smile: “I’m leaving now. If I keep that kid waiting too long, he’ll start overthinking things.”
Hama Kimura watched her leave with a smile on his face.
When Hashimoto Arina arrived at the place she had left, she saw Shirakawa Natsu holding a cell phone above her head, as if she wanted to smash it but couldn't bear to.
"Natsu, what are you doing?" Hashimoto Arina walked up to him and nudged his shoulder.
"Uh, Arina-nee." Shirakawa Natsu turned around, saw Hashimoto Arina, and awkwardly put her phone back in her pocket.
He was completely distraught. After overhearing Hashimoto Arina's confession, he had thought his affection level had reached 100%.
Excitedly, I took out my phone and saw the number on the heart next to the 3D version of Arina Hashimoto.
I felt terrible. My score, which was originally 99, suddenly dropped to 91.
He almost fainted from anger on the spot; this was even worse than six digits after the decimal point.
Taking a few deep breaths to calm herself, she forced a smile and asked, "Shall we continue exploring the pre-festival night?"
When Hashimoto Arina saw him turn his head, she remembered what she had just said about confessing to Shirakawa Natsu, and her face suddenly turned red. She turned around and said, "How annoying."
She finished speaking and walked ahead angrily.
As she walked, she kept stealing glances at Shirakawa Natsu out of the corner of her eye.
Hama Kimura confessed his love under that tree, and she rejected him there. For her, it was also a farewell to her past.
She had always treated Shirakawa Natsu as a younger brother, and her feelings for him were more like familial affection.
But after her confession, she was certain of her feelings, and her gaze towards Shirakawa Natsu changed from that of a sister looking at her brother to that of a woman looking at a man.
Her face flushed uncontrollably.
When a woman looks at a man, she quickly thinks of things between men and women, and of the thin boy who was her younger brother just yesterday lying on top of her.
Hashimoto Arina's face was already dripping with sweat.
She took a few steps, then glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Seeing that he hadn't followed, she turned back and kicked his clogs with her clogs: "Aren't you coming with me!"
"?" Shirakawa Natsumi was puzzled. What happened? She was the older sister just now, and suddenly she became cute. What's going on?
The two walked through the pre-festival night, and the atmosphere remained strange throughout.
Shirakawa Natsu suddenly felt a strange contact on her thigh. Looking down, she saw it was Hashimoto Arina's fingers.
She lowered her head slightly, one finger touching the hem of Shirakawa Natsumi's trousers.
Shirakawa Natsu was taken aback. She tried extending a finger as well, and her finger indeed hooked with his.
“Sister Cai,” Shirakawa Natsumi said.
Hashimoto Arina didn't dare to look up: "Don't speak."
The two walked a distance together, their fingers intertwined.
“When I first met you, I was taking medication to treat depression, and my world was gray.” Hashimoto Arina suddenly said, her voice low, her eyes fixed on the ground: “I envy you. You know that no matter how hard you try, you can’t change the future, but you keep trying every day and make every day meaningful.”
"I'm also very envious of Sister Youcai." Shirakawa Natsumi scratched her head: "She's like a little sun every day."
“No.” Hashimoto Arina shook her head: “I told you, I wanted to become a doctor because my father was a doctor, and I wanted to save more lives.”
“These ideals belong to my father. I inherited his rationality. I have never wanted to disappoint anyone since I was a child, so I act according to the atmosphere.”
"Although your painting movements are very strenuous, and even a bit clumsy at first, they are a true reflection of yourself."
"That's great, I want to be like that too."
Shirakawa Natsu scratched the back of his head. His motivation didn't come from any lofty reasons; he simply wanted the world to experience the pain of being cut off from the story.
“I treat you like my own younger brother.” Hashimoto Arina covered her face: “After the hot spring trip, I…”
"What happened to Ayana-nee?" Shirakawa Natsumi asked curiously. He didn't know what had happened after the hot spring inn.
“I…” Hashimoto Arina’s face turned red. After Minokomi said that you don’t know if you’re a pervert unless you try it, she tried using Shirakawa Natsu to generate electricity at home. Even in this atmosphere, she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Arina Hashimoto expressed herself in a more emotionally intelligent way: "I tried to treat Natsu as a romantic partner."
"Oh, that's it." Shirakawa Natsumi was a little disappointed.
"I've failed so badly." Hashimoto Arina said, head bowed. "Whether as an attending physician, an older sister, or an adult, I..."
“Sister Youcai.” Shirakawa Natsu suddenly pulled her into her arms.
Hashimoto Arina gasped in surprise as he pulled her into his arms, drawing the attention of passersby.
"I don't care about others anymore." Shirakawa Natsu leaned close to her ear, resting her head on the fair neck that was exposed from her kimono: "The most important thing is that I have Cai-nee. I love your decision."
As Hashimoto Arina struggled, she gradually shrank, her face flushed with embarrassment, and allowed herself to be held by a younger boy in the crowd.
However, this was just her feeling shy; to others, it was simply two lovers embracing.
It's not surprising that there are relationships between older women and younger men.
At the back of the crowd, Mikoto was carrying a burlap sack in one hand and holding a cell phone in the other.
She had originally planned to call and ask where Shirakawa Natsu was, but now she didn't need to.
As if by some kind of premonition, she could always find Shirakawa Natsu in the crowd. She put her phone in her pocket, touched her head, and felt as if she were superfluous.
"Miss Miyuki, it's been a long time." A gentle voice sounded beside her.
Miyuki turned around and saw Kimura Hama standing beside her, holding a small plastic fan commonly used at funerals, with a smile on her face: "Why are you standing here with a bag, Miyuki?"
"Long time no see." Miyuki hid the burlap sack behind his back. "These pre-festival events generate a lot of garbage and pollute the environment. I'm doing volunteer work here."
“I see. There aren’t many kind-hearted people like Miss Miyuki these days.” Kimura Hama smiled.
Miyuki felt uneasy under his smile, but she felt she couldn't be intimidated, so she pointed to the two people hugging and said, "Your ex-girlfriend is hugging another man."
Kimura Hama looked at the two of them and just smiled: "It's okay, he's already left, and he left peacefully."
"Him?" Mikoto looked at Hashimoto Arina in Shirakawa Natsu's arms and was indeed quite relieved. It was clear that this professor of literature was so flustered that he couldn't even tell the difference between himself and his girlfriend because she was hugging another man, even though he appeared calm.
Miyuki had no interest in talking to this guy who was putting on a brave face, and besides, his movements were more feminine than when they last met, which gave him a strange feeling.
"This guy is definitely a zero." Miyuki glanced at him sideways, thinking to himself, and waved his hand: "I'll be going now, Mr. Hama."
"Call me Momono, Kimura Momono," Kimura Momono said with a smile. "My new name."
Miyuki shrugged, turned and left. What a strange guy. He's started to go crazy because he lost his girlfriend.
Hashimoto Arina crawled out of Shirakawa Natsu's arms: "You brat, don't get too cocky."
"Does Sister Cai like me?" Shirakawa Natsumi asked with a smile.
"No." Hashimoto Arina denied it directly, then stretched out her hand, touching her thumb and forefinger together: "That's all I like about it, nothing more."
Shirakawa Natsumi took out her phone; after the confession, her heart count had increased from 91 to 96.
It seems to have risen even faster than last time.
The ancients were right: the more beautiful a woman is, the more likely she is to deceive.
"Hmph, woman."
"The fireworks are about to officially start." Hashimoto Arina pulled up his yukata and ran into the crowd: "Natsu, hurry up, I know a good spot to watch the fireworks."
"Mm." Shirakawa Natsumi smiled and followed.
He could clearly sense the change in Hashimoto Arina. Before, she treated him as a family member, but now, in addition to treating him as a younger brother, she treated him as a man.
Through her changes, combined with the sudden decrease in favorability rating on the Huang Mao APP, Shirakawa Natsu gradually began to understand the mechanism of this magical APP.
He got it wrong from the start; that heart shape didn't simply represent a level of affection.
In the hairstyle exchange section, there are two different options, one of which is to increase the success rate of coercive behavior.
If love represents favorability, then threats alone cannot increase favorability.
The "ninety-nine" in "love" initially referred to familial affection, but neither of them were perverted, so they couldn't bring themselves to do it.
However, if the person he's trying to win over is someone with a severe brother complex or son complex, then he should choose the path of cultivating family bonds.
The reason he's now ninety-six is because Hashimoto Arina's feelings for him have changed from familial affection to normal romantic love between a man and a woman.
As her understanding of the Huangmao APP deepened, Shirakawa Natsu felt that she had gradually touched the door to a new world.
Chapter 21 Sorry, please continue.
A week has passed since the last time they attended the pre-festival, and everything has returned to normal, but Shirakawa Natsu can sense that there has been a subtle change in their relationship.
Hashimoto Arina no longer objects to some close contact with him, such as holding hands or touching Rousi's long legs.
The red heart on the Huangmao APP has reached number ninety-seven again.
Unlike last time, this time, without the constraints of family ties, the feeling that there was a river separating the two of them disappeared.
As a blond-haired man, he has successfully kicked out the victim and is just one step away from reaching 100 goals. It's only a matter of time before he can leave the hospital bed.
Today, Shirakawa Natsu was lying in bed reading a book as usual. Since transmigrating, she had been lying in a hospital bed. There were some differences between the previous world and this world. In order to reintegrate into the outside world without being suspected, she needed to understand the basic common sense of this world.
As he was engrossed in reading, Miyuki walked in from outside, came to the bedside, and placed a paper bag on the bedside table: "Here you are, the book you wanted."
"Thank you." Shirakawa Natsu nodded and closed the book she was reading. It was a book about gods and ghosts, telling religious myths and some folk legends. There were some differences in the details compared to those on Earth, but the overall structure was not too different.
Miyu glanced at the book cover: "You've started to believe in metaphysics lately, haven't you?"
“Of course not.” Shirakawa Natsu shrugged. “As a manga artist, it is perfectly reasonable and necessary to understand various folk tales.”
“Nobody likes to read these old stories anymore.” Miyuki sat down in the caregiver’s chair. “Only some old ladies use them to scare their grandchildren.”
“This is because the story structure is outdated.” He said, opening the book and pointing to a page with a slender fox drawn in retro black and white: “For example, in the story of a fox repaying a debt of gratitude, a fox in the mountains cultivates into a spirit and wants to continue its cultivation. So it seeks out the corpse of a victim, takes the skull, fulfills the victim’s last wish, and then learns human emotions and imitates human behavior as the deceased, living among humans.”
After saying that, Shirakawa Natsu spread her hands: "Such a story is too terrible, and it has no beginning or end. No one would like to read it. A proper story of a fox repaying a debt of gratitude should be that the male protagonist saves a little fox. Then the little fox transforms into a beautiful girl with animal ears. When she repays the debt, she finds that the male protagonist is already married. She turns evil on the spot and seduces all the women around the male protagonist into fluffy balls. Only such a story would fit the aesthetics of modern otaku."
Miyuki pouted: "What if it's a male fox?"
“It’s okay.” Shirakawa Natsu shrugged. “As long as I draw the face of a pretty girl, fat guys will still come waving their money and paying. Maybe they’ll find it even more exciting.”
"To be a manga artist, that's really despicable," Miyuki snorted.
"By the way, how's Kimura Momo doing lately?" Shirakawa Natsu had heard from Miyuki that she had met Kimura Momo that night.
These days things are progressing quickly with Hashimoto Arina, but as a cautious blond guy, I have to be wary of my victim turning the tables in the final stages.
This often happens in works where the female lead has turned into a ball of fluff, but then suddenly has an epiphany, teams up with the blond guy to kill him, and suddenly it becomes a pure love ending.
“That guy became even more popular after the divorce; I heard he even received love letters from guys.” Miyuki shook her head: “Other than that, nothing has changed.”
"Ugh, he really is an unsettling guy." Shirakawa Natsu couldn't help but shudder at the thought of a man on top of another man.
Miyuki picked up the manuscript from the side and put it into the envelope: "Bleach has been confirmed to be adapted into an anime. You got a good price. Congratulations on achieving financial freedom."
Shirakawa Natsu was taken aback, then turned to look at her: "Yanokumi, thank you."
He spoke these words with utmost sincerity. Without Mi Zhi Shi, even with the yellow-haired app, he couldn't do anything with his frail body.
"Tch." Miyuki shrugged. "I was just doing this for the reward. I'm leaving now."
After she finished speaking, she stood up and left.
"Wait a minute." Shirakawa Natsu called out to her, looking at the ancient book in his hand, and said uncertainly, "There shouldn't be any monsters in this world, right?"
"Are you still half asleep?" Miyuki grinned, revealing two sharp fangs: "How could there be monsters in this world?"
“That’s true.” Shirakawa Natsu closed the book and smiled, “I was being too sensitive.”
After Miyuki left, Shirakawa Natsu started reading again, and he was now absorbing knowledge like a sponge.
So focused was she that she didn't even notice when Arina Hashimoto came up beside her.
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